Pensions: British Pensioners Overseas

Baroness Hooper Excerpts

Wednesday 11th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, bluntly, this is about money. The approach in this policy has been in place for 60 years —effectively, the current structure dates from 1955—and, as far as I am aware, during the discussion that we had on this during the passing of the Pensions Act 2014, both the Government and the Opposition confirmed that they had no desire to change current arrangements.

[Baroness Hooper (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Marlesford (Con)]

My Lords—

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)]

My Lords, I think that the House is signalling that it would like to hear from my noble friend Lady Hooper.

[Baroness Hooper]

My Lords, can my noble friend tell us about the situation for British pensioners in the overseas territories, such as the Falkland Islands, St Helena, Gibraltar and so on? Would it be possible for the scheme of partial uprating described by my noble friend Lady Benjamin to apply at least to the small number of pensioners who live in our overseas territories, which are, after all, a very special case?

[Lord Freud]

Of the 14 overseas territories, two are uprated—that is, Gibraltar and Bermuda, where we have bilateral agreements—but the other 12 are not. The reason that we cannot go ahead and treat them differently is that that would open the door for us having to do it elsewhere.