Email
September 19
Dear Editor,
Expat pensioners look likely to be hit in the wallet again; this time because the government only promises to upgrade payments for the first three years after Brexit.
There has been an attempt to justify this by saying there will be further negotiations with the European Union before guaranteeing any further uprating of the payment; this is pure nonsense.
From the start of the negotiations with the EU, pensioners living in the remaining 27 member states were assured the British government would continue to increase the benefit for those who legitimately took advantage of free movement to move abroad, just as if they had remained on home turf.
Pensions and any increase to a vulnerable group of people are entirely within the gift of Her Majesty’s Government.
Pulling the plug on earlier promises smells of Machiavellian interference and the goal is to save money. British pensioners living in the EU made their contributions and should be treated the same as those back across the Channel – they now face the same shoddy treatment as people who retired to more distant countries like Australia and New Zealand and have seen their income frozen.
Cost cutting has already seen the winter fuel allowance axed to pensioners in Spain – along with people in countries like France – but not Italy. Again these people made the same contributions and face massive temperature changes every winter. The dubious litmus paper temperature test applied by Secretary of State Iain Duncan Smith in David Cameron’s government stinks – the promise was to keep the older population warm…and that’s On the Record.
Name and address supplied.
