‘Miserly’ pension deal

Expat gets hot under the collar at British Government’s attitude towards pensioners

FEELING ripped off.

That’s how Jim Tilley feels, but he’s not leaving it at that.

He’s up and fighting to see that all British expats living in Australia understand the legalities of the UK state age pension.

As the spokesman for British Pensions in Australia, he wants every person who has paid into compulsory national insurance contributions when working in the UK to have the same pension rights as any other British citizen – living in the country or not.

He aims to change the laws that freeze the UK age pension payment to expats in Australia from their year of relocation.

He believes that regardless of location, people who paid into the British system should be entitled to the same annual yearly increases as any other British citizen.

The British overseas residents’ pension situation has anomalies, which BPiA is seriously challenging.

Firstly, according to the BPiA, the UK pensions are uprated annually for citizens living in the US, Israel, the EU, the Philippines and Turkey, but they are not uprated in 48 of the 53 Commonwealth nations.

Indeed, when Mr Tilley put pen to paper, he was scathing of the system that is allowing the current pension scheme to continue.

“Freezing pensions of British expats is an example of blatant miserly British Government discrimination from a nation which believes in and promotes itself as being fair minded, respecting equality, sound ethics and moral behaviour,” he wrote.

Mr Tilley said there were many reasons people left their country, but it was not usually for a grand holiday.

More often, he said, it was to support their family in other countries, and it was likely they had paid a lifetime of taxes into the British system.

The BPiA has recently been supported by stage and screen actor Miriam Margolyes, who is no less scandalised and warns that the policy “plunges the most vulnerable into poverty”.

The BPiA is there to support anyone interested in finding out about their eligibility for the UK age pension.

Phone 1300 308 353 or visit www.bpia.org.au and, in return for a small annual membership sub, they will give you their help.

Photo: Bob Finlayson WORKING FOR CHANGE: Jim Tilley is one of many British expats living in Australia who have had their level of pension payments frozen.