It was supposed to be an exciting time for Anne Puckridge, then 76. She had sold her house, she’d alerted the Department of Work and Pensions to her retirement plans, and she was just days away from moving to Canada to live close to her daughter. But days away from making the move thousands of miles across the ocean, Anne found out the years of retirement she was so looking forward to enjoying, may not pan out as she had planned. It was a neighbour who had previously lived in Canada that alerted her, she says for the first time, to the fact that her state pension payments would not be uprated each year while living over there.
I didn’t believe her. I thought, ‘No country would treat its pensioners like that!
Anne Puckridge, End Frozen Pensions campaigner
Anne was left astounded. “I didn’t believe her,” Anne, now 94, told Express.co.uk.
“I didn’t believe her. I thought, ‘No country would treat its pensioners like that! No way would Britain, above all, do that to its fully paid up pensioners.”
For decades, the UK government has uprated state pensions each year - to keep up with the cost of living.
However, it’s only pensioners living in certain countries who are able to benefit from the annual increase.
You will only get the increase if you live in the European Economic Area (EEA), Gibraltar, or Switzerland, or a country which has a “social security agreement with the UK that allows for cost of living increases to the state pension,” a statement from the Department for Work and Pensions reads.
Some of the countries on the list have a Social Security Agreement with the UK which includes British pension uprating.
The USA, Switzerland, and Turkey are on the list of places where UK expats may get uprated pensions.
But, Canada, South Africa, and a whole host of other locations are not.
It’s those who make the move to these countries whose state pensions are frozen at the rate it stood at when they retired overseas.
Should a pensioner return to the UK, they will be able to access the uprated rate. But for some, moving country yet again is just not an option - nor a prospect they feel they should have to face.
In 2001, Anne, a World War Two veteran who served in a variety of roles in the Second World War, received a state pension of £72.50 per week. Today, 18 years later, she is paid the exact same amount: £72.50.
State pension frozen overseas: Anne Puckridge is campaigning to end frozen overseas state pensions (Image: ANNE PUCKRIDGE • PA)
According to her personal circumstances, she has said she would be getting £125.95 per week, should she live in the UK, or a country which has a reciprocal agreement. She’s lucky, Anne says, because Canada helps her out with medical care.
She insists that there’s plenty of others out there in a far worse situation than her. “I am so lucky that I am in Canada, because Canada does help us.
“But there are many many many thousands - hundreds of thousands - very very much worse off, who get no help from their countries.”
Perhaps she considers herself lucky, but she’s still found financial hardship.
Not only a mother and grandmother, but also a great-grandmother, the 94-year-old struggles to even buy new clothes and enjoy trips to the theatre.
“I can’t actually think of the last time I actually bought a brand new garment,” she said.
“I have to buy all of my clothes from thrift stores, charity stores, to buy my clothing.
“I can only attend any sort of outside entertainment if somebody will take me.”
It may have been too late for Anne to do anything about the overseas frozen state pension before her move to
