Latest News

18 November 2011

Petition

UK Government has reopened the e-petition facility and, following dedicated work by officers of ICBP and its affiliates, there is now an 'official' petition lodged on the UKGov site.

Click on the PETITION link to obtain instructions and a link to the petition site.

We only need 100,000 signatures for the Government to honour its promise to debate the matter in the House of Commons. Considering there are over 5 times this number of 'frozen pensioners' out there and they all have friends and relatives who are UK citizens there should be no problem in well exceeding this target before the cut-off date of September 2012.

The petition rules are that only one 'signature' is accepted per e-mail address; this is contrary to the rules governing hard copy petitions and ICBP are taking this up with UK Gov. Meanwhile, if your partner wishes to sign - set up a free hotmal address to do it - it's quite a simple procedure. As of today there are 11,433 signatures and, yes, there is still 10 months to go. Tony Bockman advises that there are still 'irons in the fire' to swell these numbers. Push this petition as much as you can in all the media, amongst all your contacts (friends, family etc) and let's see a result before September 2012.

Early Day Motion 1895

Just 100 signatures to-date, not looking too likely that there will be an early day debate here, so we need to push the petition.

Support ICBP

ICBP is fighting on all fronts on our behalf.

In the UK John Markham and Tony Bockman have established important links with key stakeholders in Age UK and the TUC; moves are afoot to harness their support to our petition. Peter Morris of the British Australian Pensioner Association, who lives currently in the UK, was instrumental in submitting the petition.

Despite the disappointing response to our appeal for people to contribute to ICBP, a number of people are joining the ICBP associate organisations. The difficulty is that the payments of subscriptions are often subject to currency exchange costs, so that a £20 payment results in almost double at the bank. The Canadian Association of British Pensioners does accept sterling cheques (subscriptions from 1 January 2012 arev £20.00) - contact Margaret Wells mawells@pathcom.com

Temporary Pension Uprating

If you intend to visit a country where the pension uprating IS applied, you can get a temporary uprating to the current UK level for the period of your visit.

Telephone +44 (0) 191 218 7777 at any time from a month before your visit to claim your temporary increase. (Save the cost by phoning when you get there if you are going to UK).

Make sure you have to hand - your National Insurance number and your current address. You may be asked a couple of security questions.

It is understood that there is no minimum period of time in the relevant country before you can get the increase; DWP will work out the amount due based on the weekly pension pro rata to the period you are staying. This is the time in the country you visit as opposed to the time away from your country of residence.

26 JULY 2011

A meeting was held on 18th July in Pattaya amongst a few people who were concerned that the push for pension parity from Thailand seemed to have stalled.

It was agreed that Judith Edmonds had put a great deal of effort into chasing up people who had promised donations to the International Consortium of British Pensioners (ICBP) at the inaugural meetings last year. (see notes further down this page) Because of the apathetic response Judith was eventually only able to send £301 to ICBPafter paying currency transfer fees of £25. This was further reduced by £6.60 at the other end, as seen from the acknowledgement we eventually recieved:

On behalf of our Treasurer (Anthony Samotus) - I accessed the said account
and sent him a copy of the statement ...the statement shows a receipt of Gbp
294.40 from Thailand on June 30, 2011
 
also on behalf of TonyB and ICBP please accept our thanks and regrets we did
not confirm this amount earlier but with banking changing hands between
treasurers it is difficult.

Because of the relatively small number of non-resident UK ex-pats in Thailand, compared to those countries that had ICBP affiliated associations, it had been agreed that a contribution to the sterling work being done by ICBP was probably the best that could be achieved. There was no propsect of gaining sufficient members to carry out the sort of promotional activities seen in Australia and Canada. Those who wished to continue writing to MPs, MEPs and the media should do so..

It was now agreed that individuals should make contributions direct to ICBP if they desired by sending donations through one of the affiliated associations - details are in the notes of this meeting to be found in the Download section.

In the notes there is also some updated information regarding Government proposals to extend the electoral timetable to allow more time for overseas voters to send in postal votes plus the latest information on the Early Day Motion (see below) and news that Dicky Bird and Michael Parkinson have agreed to act as ambassadors for our cause.

JULY 2011

1. ICBP RESPONSE TO GOVERNMENT CONSULTATION - 'A State Pension for the 21st Century'

2. Open letter to David Cameron from Canadian Alliance of British Pensioners

3. Speech to Pensioners' Parliament by Tony Bockman, Chairman of ICBP

See 'Downloads' section

EARLY DAY MOTION 1895

http://www.parliament.uk/edm/2010-11/1895

Primary sponsor: Mordaunt, Penny

Sponsors: Begg, Anne Bottomley, Peter Caton, Martin Corbyn, Jeremy Ward, David

That this House notes that under regulation 3 of the Social Security BenefitsUp-rating Regulations 2011 more than half a million British people who have retired to any one of more than 120 countries including the majority of Commonwealth countries have their rightful British state pension frozen and are denied their rights to annual up-rating to that pension, meaning that they continue to lose money to which they are entitled having paid National Insurance contributions during their working lives; further notes that the continuation of this regulation will impact on the freedom of choice of country of residence for many constituents upon their retirement in coming years; and calls on the Government to review regulation 3 of the Up-rating Regulations and thus treat all British pensioners with the dignity and fairness that they deserve.

As at 4th July 2011 there were 67 signatories to this EDM; you should contact your MP and ask them to sign it. However, please note that Government ministers may decline by virtue of being Cabinet, PPS etc - see below for typical response using, it is supposed, a pro-forma that is made available to MPs for purpose.

Dear Mr. xxx,

Thank you for contacting me about your EDM 1895. I would like to assure you that we do understand how disappointed you are not to receive the fully up-rated state pension. The UK State Pension is payable worldwide but is only up-rated where there is a legal requirement or reciprocal arrangement to do so. A significant number of pensioners are affected by this, resident in many countries – particularly Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) recently rejected an appeal by expatriate pensioners and ruled that the Government was not obliged to pay annual inflation-linked state pension increases to expatriates. The Government has said that it continues to take its obligations under the terms of the European Convention on Human Rights seriously and is satisfied that it is complying and therefore has no plans to make any changes to the current arrangements.

Members of the Government do not, by convention, sign any Early Day Motions, as doing so is likely to breach the Ministerial Code’s rules on collective responsibility.

Thank you for contacting me on this issue.

Yours sincerely,

Jonathan Djanogly

Dear Mr. Djanogly,

Many thanks for your response even though it was the usual one of, get lost. I had no idea Members of Parliament do not sign EDM's for the reasons mention, my apologies.

You claim the government takes its responsibilities under the European Convention on Human Rights seriously but that's not true is it, otherwise the 82,000 or so inmates incarcerated in HM prisons in England and Wales would now have the vote.

What we are talking about here is the gross injustice of about 500,000 people being denied their right to pension indexation because of an archaic ruling made over 60 years ago by Mr. Clement Attlee who failed to make reciprocal agreements with some country's many of which are in the British Commonwealth.

In those days it may well have been justifiable on the bases that many people didn't travel and spent their retirement within the UK. That is not true today, now hundreds of thousands of people choose to retire and spend their remaining days aboard.

Successive governments have side stepped the issue but it will not go away, we are not requesting special treatment we are simply asking for what we have already paid for and was promised.

Mr. David Cameron was elected because the people seek change, he himself said there will be fair pensions for all and that is all that we are asking.

So please Mr. Jonathan Djanogly would you put your support behind our cause and raise by what ever means necessary and put this issue before your Ministers for long over due reform.

Yours sincerely.

Michael xxx

Inaugural meeting in Pattaya

British Pensioners in Thailand

British Pensioners in Thailand held two meetings at the Bowling Green in Soi Fuengfa, Pattaya on Thursday 19^th and Sunday 22^nd of August.

The purpose of these meetings was to form an organisation to petition the UK Government to upgrade their pensions so that they have parity with the rest of the UK pensioners.

This case has already gone to the highest Court possible, namely the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights where the result was in favour of the UK: a result that used legal technicalities without any consideration of the morality of the issue.

This means that any UK pensioner retiring to Thailand, Australia, Canada, South Africa, New Zealand and 48 other Commonwealth countries will never have any increase in their pensions until the day they die.

Unfair?? Of course it is...after all, these people worked all their life and paid into the system in the expectation of getting a liveable pension with annual increments to cover the increases in the cost of living.

A lot of MPs are aware of this situation and are favourably inclined towards a fair and just settlement to all pensioners.

The International Consortium of British Pensioners (ICBP) has been formed to fight for pension parity collectively.

The ICBP has plans to organise a huge electronic petition of at least 100,000 signatures, which, due to its size, will then be put to the House of Commons and debated.

To do this, we have to drum up support not just from ourselves but our families and friends who are still in the UK.

We are asking all our fellow pensioners to ask their families and friends to write to their MPs to ask why this anomaly is allowed to continue. Letters asking “why does the UK Government treat my Dad/Mother like this” or from grandchildren “ why are you so mean to my Grandad/Grandma” are the sort of thing we are looking for in the hopes of getting more MPs on our side.

The other way forward is to have one or more very prominent persons to take up our case, as Joanna Lumley did with the Ghurkas and shamed the UK government into righting a wrong.

To this end we will be writing to actors/actresses, business people, the media etc in the hopes of drumming up support.

Financially, the Pension fund has over 55billion pounds in it and our National Insurance contributions were part of that.

We actually save the Government money in that we no longer are a cost on Social Services, National Health, Free transport, and many other benefits, and we still pay tax on our pensions.

The Canadian Prime Minister and his cohorts are at present in discussions with David Cameron's team and hope to resolve this problem; hopefully applied to all of us wherever we may live.

They had considered asking all their members to boycott UK goods, perhaps if all the frozen pensioners did the same it would have an effect upon the economy.

All of us here contribute to Thailand's economy on a regular basis, by shopping, eating out, visiting places of interest and even using taxis and baht buses, so perhaps someone in the Thai government would also take an interest in our plight.

Many pensioners and 'soon-to-be' pensioners attended our meetings, some with their wives.

A resume of the current situation and the actions of pressure groups in other countries was given. Lively discussion took place once the meeting was opened up for comments from the floor. Both meetings discussed the possible ways forward now that the legal case has been lost.

The outcome was that the meeting recognised the small number of official ex-patriot UK pensioners in Thailand, the previous and on-going work of the International Consortium of British Pensioners (ICBP) and the support that could be given to the ICBP campaign being carried out at the Party Conferences in the UK and through other initiatives.

A resolution was passed at both meetings, to make an annual contribution of ฿1,000 per person, per annum to the ICBP to help fund the fight. A bank account has been set up and details of how to make contributions will be sent directly if you have given us your e-mail address.

If you wish to contribute, please leave us a mail on this site and your name will be passed on to our Treasurer.

Meanwhile, look at the video made by Pattaya TV - it's in two parts, so watch each part in sequence.

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQ_zhdj0SgA
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxNy_T8bfls