9. Mar, 2014

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This week's international Telegraph reported a huge housing shortage for immigrants, yet the Government ignores the opportunity to "clear" some of the existing housing stock. A 2011 survey indicated that there are thousands of people wanting to emigrate, many of them people who came to England by invitation in the 1950s and who now want to return to their home countries in Africa and the Caribbean. They cannot fulfil their dreams because of the Government’s frozen pension policy. A 2012 report calculated that each of these people allowed to emigrate would save the Treasury around £4,000 a year.

Meanwhile, you have more and more people like Mrs Puckridge, who returned to the UK from Canada, because they cannot survive on their frozen pensions, thus taking up more housing, requiring winter fuel allowances, bus passes and free TV licences and putting more pressure on the NHS. Paying them the up-rated pension in line with everyone else would cost an average of £1.200 a year, according to Government figures.

The maths are obvious. Everyone gains. Hasn’t the Government Establishment punished ex-pat pensioners enough for daring to want to leave Britain to live in the Commonwealth rather than in one of their favoured countries?