Nearly 500k older people won't get £11,973 state pension payment this year

Some pensioners are losing up to £5,405 in yearly State Pension payments this tax year. Campaigners are calling for change for around 453,000 pensioner expats who receive significantly lower pensions than their UK counterparts, regardless of whether they have paid taxes for their working lives, because they live in countries where the UK state pension remains frozen.

A 100-year-old Second World War veteran, Anne Puckridge, has received a frozen rate of just £72.50 per week since she left the UK aged 76, less than half the £176.45 she would be entitled to as of April 2024, which works out as £5,405 less over a year. The International Consortium of British Pensioners (ICBP) launched an to "end the injustice" for around 453,000 expats whose does not rise in line with the every April.

Expat retirees in impacted countries will not receive any uplifts from the , which saw the New Full rise by 4.1% from £11,502 to £11,973, and it is set to continue at a rate of 2.5% until 2030.

It mainly impacts pensioners in Commonwealth countries, including Canada and Australia, where the UK government is not bound by agreements to raise state pension payments.

However, expats who have retired in the USA or Europe are generally eligible to receive the same inflated rates as the UK.

Some campaigners hope that the election of Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney, will bring about change because he worked in the UK for several years, and would have paid into a pension, most notably as the Governor of the Bank of England.

Edwina Melville-Grey, Chair of End Frozen Pensions Canada, hopes he will meet with Anne Puckridge, who she believes "embodies the injustice of this scandal".

She said: "We don't imagine for a moment that Mr Carney will be reliant on whatever UK State Pension he might be entitled to.

"However, we know for sure that many thousands of the UK State Pensioners living in affected countries, including those in Canada, see their UK State Pension as a vital lifeline helping them through arduous times."