We appreciate the Committee's agreement to consider evidence from organizations speaking on behalf of 460,000 frozen expatriate pensioners. There can be no dispute, that this group:

1.  is the only group of UK state pensioners which has never received any uprating to their pensions—the most poverty-stricken of all pensioners must be found within this group

2.  receives no supplementary social benefits from the UK, and a large proportion of the poorest receive no, or very limited such benefits from any other government

3.  presents no financial liability to the UK Treasury (neither do they have any expectations) for any of the myriad of other social security/healthcare benefits available to UK residents.

  Many of these pensioners live in countries with no social security net to assist them in their most difficult final years. Examples of such countries are South Africa and Zimbabwe. Many others live in countries where social security benefits available may be quite limited because of shorter periods of residence and/or, in some cases, some degree of means testing. Canada[43] is just one example of countries within this group.

  Although it does not have funds available to undertake comprehensive surveys of frozen pensioners, the World Alliance has started to accumulate a central registry of case histories of frozen pensioners experiencing the severest financial hardship. The specific financial impact of pension freezing on these individuals is clearly defined. The first few of these case histories are summarized as an attachment to this document. The data results from information offered by the individuals and, in most cases, subsequent interviews by volunteer researchers. For obvious reasons, our volunteer researchers did not pursue or interview any of the case histories amongst the 5,500 frozen pensioners living in Zimbabwe.

  The World Alliance feels it is necessary to make the point that in the absence of valid research data to the contrary, it is reasonable to assume that the demographic and socio-economic levels are generally consistent between all UK state pensioners, regardless of their country of residence. However, within those general terms clearly the ever-decreasing, in real terms, UK state pension benefits received by the 54 per cent of expatriate pensioners with frozen pensions, is a major contributor to moving more and more of that group into the ranks of the poverty stricken. Not only do they suffer at least the indignity of such treatment, but over the years, the pension income they have lost has played an increasingly important role in leading them down the road to poverty, to say nothing of the financial pressures brought to bear on relatives/ friends as they attempt to make up for the shortfall by Britain, by doing their best to help to keep their elderly relatives away from poverty.

June 2000