Expats wait for final court ruling on pension rises

After years of courtroom wrangling, 13 expatriates will learn if they have won their test case for the right to index-linked rises routinely paid to UK-based pensioners but denied to many who have settled abroad.

Under current rules pensioners who retire abroad only get state pension increases in line with inflation if they live in countries with reciprocal arrangements – the other 26 EU countries, plus the US, Switzerland, Iceland, Norway, Turkey and Liechtenstein.

So-called "up-rating" of the state pension does not apply to those opting to settle in Canada, South Africa, Australia or New Zealand. The 13 in the test case live in Canada, South Africa and Australia.

They include Annette Carson, 78, who emigrated to South Africa in 1989 and whose example was cited in the original legal claims which were rejected in the High Court, the Court of Appeal and the House of Lords.

A subsequent claim in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg was also lost, when all but one of the judges ruled that denying the 13 their pension increases did not breach a Human Rights Convention declaration.

In a hearing in the human rights court last September – effectively the last appeal stage – lawyers argued that pensioners who had made full national insurance contributions throughout their working lives should not have their pensions frozen and denied statutory increase just because of their country of residence.

But Government lawyers said the priority had to be to target money on the poorest pensioners living at home, and that it could not apply increases to those opting to live in countries which have no reciprocal agreements with Britain.

On the eve of the verdict Ms Carson said it had been a "tooth and nail battle" with the Government. "Some pensioners have to live on just 6 a week."

Actual pensions for those in the test case vary depending on when they left Britain and their rate of contributions, but in most cases they say they should now be on the basic rate of 82.05 a week – about double the sum received by some.