More than 58,000 people have now backed an online petition calling on Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to meet with a 99-year-old World War Two veteran who plans to travel from her home in Canada to London next month to raise awareness about frozen State Pensions for nearly half a million Brits living abroad. Anne Puckridge plans to fly to the UK just days before her 100th birthday.
The petition on Change.org was started by Anne’s daughter Gillian, and draws attention to some 453,000 State Pensions that do not receive the annual uplift under the Triple Lock policy. Despite having spent her working life in the UK and making all her National Insurance Contributions, since leaving the country in 2001, Anne receives just £72.50 per week – less than half the £169.50 Basic State Pension she would receive if she still lived in the UK.
Under the Triple Lock, the New and Basic State Pensions increase each year in-line with whichever is the highest between the average annual earnings growth from May to July (4.1%), CPI in the year to September (1.7%), or 2.5 per cent.
The full New State Pension will be worth £230.25 per week from next April while someone on the full, Basic State Pension will receive £176.45. However, expats living in countries that do not have a reciprocal agreement with the UK Government will not be due the uprating, with many having seen their State Pension payments frozen at the point of emigration.
Next month, Anne plans to undertake her largest campaigning effort to date in a bid to speak directly with the Prime Minister about the issue, urging him to acknowledge her wartime service, lifelong dedication to Britain and her one desire to speak up for all other victims affected by frozen State Pensions.
Anne is just one of over 100,000 British pensioners living in Canada whose State Pension has not increased since they left the UK. The annual uplift next April will see the WW2 veteran miss out on more than £100 each week.
Anne said: “I have seen many Prime Ministers come and go in my time and I sincerely believe our current leader is a decent and honest man who will surely grant a 99-year-old pensioner a brief moment of his time. I wasn’t told my pension would be frozen when I moved abroad and neither did most of those in the same situation as me.
“Supporting some pensioners in full and leaving others out to dry is cruel, and we have been denied a voice for too long. I have been touched by the public’s support in these last few weeks. It is a sign that we are not alone in our plight and that our deep feelings of unjust treatment are resounding with the British people.
She added: “I only hope those advising the Prime Minister will understand that as exposure of this cruel policy grows, the louder our voices will grow.”
Anne was just under 18 when she enlisted for service at the height of World War Two, in 1942. Her wartime service included stints in all three of the RAF, the Navy, and the Armed Forces. She later spent her entire working life in the UK and moved to Canada aged 76 to be nearer her daughter in older age, but as a result, her State Pension has remained frozen for 23 years.
John Duguid, Chair of the End Frozen Pensions campaign representing affected British pensioners worldwide, said: “We are eternally grateful to those members of the public who see and understand the injustice of this scandal and realise the hurt this outdated UK policy is causing to so many. Anne is travelling a significant distance to represent every single victim of the Frozen Pensions scandal which is testament to her tireless sense of fight and goodwill.
“The Prime Minister has an opportunity here. He can cast aside decades of failing to even engage with this cruelty simply by meeting Anne. She is not asking for him to solve this injustice there and then. She is asking for him to have the decency to have her story heard, denied by every one of his predecessors. It is the least she deserves as a decorated wartime veteran and a decades-long campaigner.”
You can read the petition on Change.org here.