Uk Pensions-increases.

[Rinrada]

Government have it seems just announced that they will be paying the £200 a year annual fuel allowances to our pensioners living in Spain.....

and about time too.

[RDN]

Government have it seems just announced that they will be paying the £200 a year annual fuel allowances to our pensioners living in Spain.....

and about time too.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Indeed they are. This in from the BEP group quoting an article in the Daily Telegraph:

From the DT.

Britons in Spain get £200 winter fuel payments

By Brendan Carlin, Political Correspondent

(Filed: 21/07/2005)

The winter fuel payments scheme instituted by Gordon Brown has handed 

out around £7 million to pensioners living in Spain and other 

southern European countries, it emerged yesterday.

The Liberal Democrats urged a review of the system after discovering 

that thousands of recipients of the £200-a-time payments were 

resident in the sunnier climes of countries such as Portugal, Cyprus 

and Greece.

Under arrangements which apply across the European Union, Britons 

living abroad can "export" state benefits to their overseas homes.

It means that expatriates resident as far away as Iceland, Poland and 

Lithuania now get help with their winter fuel bills.

But by far the largest number of overseas claimants are those living 

in Spain, with more than 31,000 payments since 2002-03 or just over 

£6.3 million in total. The number of payments to Britons living in 

Spain has trebled in the past three years.

France has the second highest number of pay outs at just over 12,000 

(£2.4 million), with Ireland third at 4,424 or £884,000.

David Laws, the Liberal Democrat work and pensions spokesman, who 

obtained the figures, questioned why "some quite affluent pensioners 

living abroad" in what in some cases were "quite warm Mediterranean 

climates" were receiving the help.

The issue arose as two reports published today warn that the number 

of people who struggle to meet the cost of heating would rise.

The National Energy Action, and the National Right to Fuel Campaign 

blame increases in the cost of fuel and relatively static incomes, 

especially for the elderly. However, a separate report from the 

Government, also released today, shows that fuel poverty dropped from 

6.5 million households in 1996 to two million in 2003.

The Department for Work and Pensions indicated last night that there 

were no plans to review the winter fuel system as it affected Britons 

living abroad.

So for people retired in Thailand, why can't we get a summer air-con fuel allowance? Or a dry-season water-pump fuel allowance? Or a rainy season umbrella allowance?

[Rinrada]

A safer solution would be to get a mail drop in the Philipines, where you would get the increases, and have the money paid into your Uk bank.

Yes one way of doing it.

I am sure that common sense must prevail eventually but untill then I will rent a letter box stuck to a tree in my mates back garden in La Union ,San Fernando..ROP and get whatever I am supposed to get ..sent there.

Will give me an excuse to fly over ever 2 weeks or so from C.M.on a jolly for a change of air and a couple of San Migs ....just for a change....thats assuming that by then Thai have a fdirect light to the place and hes has bought a tree.

[RDN]

Latest from BEP group:

Can anyone explain to me the defination of' "RECIPRACAL TREATY

ARRANGEMENTS'.If.it was afforded to America,why can't it be afforded to

other Countries where Pensions are frozen.

I am resident in Thailand! There are no government subsidies or hand-outs

here.If you have no money you starve,

I am given to believe that most pensioners here have thier

pensions 'Indexed linked" to thier respective Countries.Its only the Brits that

suffer.

                                        Albert Dickinson

Albert? Are you reading this?

And this was the answer:

A Reciprocal Treaty is one where each country commits to treating the other country's citizens as favourably as its own. In our circle of people campaigning to have our pensions uprated, the expression is often used as shorthand for "A Reciprocal Agreement providing for pensions uprating" where each country undertakes to uprate the pensions of its citizens in the other's country. There was until a few years ago a reciprocal agreement for social security between the UK and Australia but it did not contain a provision for pensions uprating. Aiustralia has always uprated its pensioners in Britain, but Britain refused repeated requests to do similarly for its pensioners here. So Australia terminated the agreement.

As to why one was signed with the USA, I cannot say for sure, but the most likely reason is that there are similar numbers of American pensioners living in Britain as there are Britons in the USA. It's quite different here where there are 240,000 UK pensioners compared with just a few thousand in Britain. That's why the UK Govt refuses uprating, because it would cost Britain much more than it costs Australia. We argue that has nothing to do with it; we paid the same contributions as UK pensioners who benefit from uprating, wherever they live, so we should have parity with them, that is, the same amount of pension.

Britain is the only OECD (advanced) country to practise discrimination by country of residence. The others, as you say, index-link their pensions for all, whether at home or abroad.