Island View – Fighting for British pensions in Phuket’s paradise

PHUKET: Your signatures are needed to end the unfair frozen overseas pension policy of the British government.

Some of you may not be aware that when a United Kingdom state pensioner retires to live abroad in certain countries their pension is frozen and they do not receive annual cost-of-living increases. There are over half a million of these pensioners affected by this totally unjust law, mostly in the Commonwealth countries of Australia, Canada and South Africa, but also in Thailand. These pensioners made the same National Insurance contributions as those living in the UK who get the increases.

The International Consortium of British Pensioners (ICBP) is the organization representing UK pensioners living abroad and they have been very active in trying to get the government to change the legislation so that all pensioners are treated equally.

A new electronic petition on the frozen pension issue, sponsored by the ICBP, has now been posted on the government website with the aim of obtaining 100,000 signatures so that this matter can be considered for debate in the House of Commons. So come on, you Britons, male and female, young and old, rich and poor, speak out and add your name to the petition.

To sign the petition, visit bit.ly/BritPensions and click on the “Sign this petition” button.

Complete all the details and make sure your email address is accurate, as you will be sent a confirmation message as part of the process.

Where asked if you are a “British Citizen or UK Resident”, answer “yes”, unless you are neither.

Having completed all of the above, click the next box, “I agree to the Terms and Conditions”, then click on the box “Sign this E petition”.

You will receive a confirmation email usually within minutes. Click on the link provided in that email and your signature will be registered.

Additional votes will not be accepted from the same email address. If you are a couple who share one email address, both names can be entered in the name box but it will only register one vote.

— Peter Wyborn