Andrew Rosindell – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Rosindell on 2016-02-23.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the effect is on the public purse of not annually uprating the UK state pensions of British pensioners living overseas.

Justin Tomlinson

The Government has a clear position, which has remained consistent for around 70 years: UK state pensions are payable worldwide and uprated abroad where we have a legal requirement to do so for example in the European Economic Area or countries where we have bilateral agreements. There are no plans to change this.

Not uprating where there is no legal requirement to do so frees up about £0.5 billion a year which can be used to fund Government priorities in this country.