The Winter Fuel payment - What one must do now.

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Mr Frank Field MP DL, Chairman of the Select Committee for Work and Pensions  has replied to me, and he says.....

The Committee has no plans, at present, to investigate the specific matter you raise but I am always open to suggestions from colleagues. Might I suggest, therefore, that any friends or relatives of yours living in the UK should ask their local MP to take up this matter in the House?

This seems encouraging – it is then absolutely necessary to persuade individual MPs to write to Mr. Field, and through him to the Select Committee, requesting the Committee to include in their investigations the issue of the unnecessary hardship to be caused by the selective withdrawal of the WFP in September.  Encourage Friends and Relatives resident in the UK to do so also, for the sake of those less fortunate than yourselves, and in the cause of fairness and honesty.

Suggested wording of a letter to your MP:

*********************************************

To   XXXXX  MP.

Subject – WINTER FUEL PAYMENT.

Dear ------------------   I, as a constituent,  request that you write to Frank Field MP, Chairman of the Select Committee for Work & Pensions, on the basis of the following information:

From this September under the Statutory Instrument 3270 of  2014 introduced by Iain Duncan Smith as Secretary of State for the DWP, this benefit [WFP] is to be withdrawn from elderly British Citizens in 6 countries and one British dependency in the EU (below referred as 7 'countries').

The DWP is claiming that the withdrawal is justified by invoking a temperature check on these 7 'countries', in comparison with SW England but:

* There are many elderly British Citizens living in these 7 'countries' who are in need of the WFP.  Visit www.lefourquet.net/Hardup-dossier.doc  to read of some 17 of these citizens. It is apparent that they are discriminated against by the operation of SI 3270.

* 35 MPs signed the EDM 695 last year ‘praying’ that the SI 3270 be annulled. (11-Con- 12 Lab – 8 LD – 2 SNP – 1 Gr – 1 Ind.)

* There is evidence that these temperature checks have been falsely calculated, for example they include in the case of France, temperatures of Caribbean and Indian Ocean territories which are French possessions, but are not France. 

* It is further clear that the fact that winter temperatures in many districts of France and even Spain fall well below those in SW England.- Spain, Cyprus, Portugal (Estrela) and of course France. e.g. all have tourist ski resorts.

* Furthermore, winter temperatures in these countries all fall below that which require home heating to maintain health.

In addition, this is contrary to  EU Regulation 883/2004  ---- Article 7 which states:

Waiving of residence rules:

Unless otherwise provided for by this Regulation, cash benefits payable under the legislation of one or more Member States or under this Regulation shall not be subject to any reduction, amendment, suspension, withdrawal or confiscation on account of the fact that the beneficiary or the members of his family reside in a Member State other than that in which the institution responsible for providing benefits is situated.

Could you please write to Frank Field MP DL ..  within Parliament  requesting that the Select Committee for Work & Pensions considers in their investigations,  the hardship to be caused by selective withdrawal of the WFP from certain British pensioners resident within the EU in September.

****************************************

Please copy all the above between the lines of  ******* and send to your  MP.   You may of course add any extra material relating to yourself or your family and friends affected by this matter.

And as Frank Field MP suggests, encourage all your friends and relatives in the UK to do likewise.

 Find email and other addresses of MPs  here .... http://www.parliament.uk/mps-lords-and-offices/mps/

British Pensioners - Emigration.

EMIGRATION of British STATE PENSIONERS

The figures for August 2014 have just been published..

http://83.244.183.180/100pc/sp/cccountry/cnage/a_carate_r_cccountry_c_cnage_aug14.html

The table condenses the movement of the last three years. The  countries with a * do not have the UK pensions frozen.  A blue background indicates members of the EU. 

Further on is a graph of the movement towards EU countries.

The table is ‘sorted’ in order of the countries which have received the greatest number of immigrants down to the most withdrawal.  Note that Ireland has had the greatest number of recipients. In Ireland of course English is spoken – they can vote for the Irish Government and in effect can easily be assimilated. 

France and New Zealand come next  .  Although the UK pension  is frozen in NZ, the NZ Government awards a Social Security support and accepts the UK N.I. history as a basis for such payments.  

 

The fall in the number receiving the British Pension in Australia and Canada (and S.Africa.?) must be in part due to the Frozen Pension condition.  The small increase in India may have something to do with the rapidly increasing standard of living there and the affluence of returning Indians from the UK?   Jamaica on the other hand is a poor country?

 Click on the image to enlarge and 'esc' to return.

Movement of British State Pensioners throughout the World

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Movement of British State Pensioners to other EU  STATES and other countries of the world

The first Chart below shows the increase of  British State Pensioners who moved to other States of the EU between 1973 to 2014.











To view the graph larger click on the graph- to return press 'esc'
The table lower down gives figures for movements  in Europe and other parts of the world. Those countries with a * have State pensions increased each year - the others have the British State pensions frozen.

Some observations.

New Zealand
The largest number of retired British citizens emigrating during 2013/14 went to New Zealand.  In N.Z the British State pension is frozen  - but......
New Zealand residents are entitled to receive NZ Super (the old age pension) if they satisfy all of the following conditions. They must:

• have reached State pension age (currently age 65);
• be a New Zealand citizen or permanent resident;
• live in New Zealand;
• have lived in New Zealand for at least 10 years since age 20; or
• have lived in New Zealand for at least 5 years since age 50.

Residence in a country with which New Zealand has reciprocal social security arrangements (like Australia and the UK) counts as residence in New Zealand.
---------------  New Zealand is moreover the most ‘English’ of all destinations.

This is probably a significant reason why the influx of British State Pensioners is constantly rising in New Zealand.
 CANADA - SOUTH AFRICA - AUSTRALIA  In these countries the State Pension is frozen and their appears to be no adequate compensation scheme to offset this.  No doubt this is why the numbers are dropping.
PAKISTAN and JAMAICA and INDIA - Although Jamaica has non-frozen pensions, the numbers have dropped year on year.  Pakistan also shows a year on year decline.- possibly there is a cultural reason?
India (with frozen pensions) shows an increase - again is the reason cultural, but opposite to that of Pakistan and more akin to the reasons why so many native stock Britons retire abroad especially to culturally similar countries?
ITALY and USA In  MAY 2013 ( see the last column of figures) these countries achieved a higher figure and have since declined by tiny numbers.
NEW ZEALAND, IRELAND and FRANCE have received the greatest number of immigrant retired British citizens since MAY 2013 with 3480, 2140 and 1740 people respectively.
N.B. not all British State Pensioners are British Citizens, this is probably chiefly true of the Irish situation.
Remember that these figures include the death rate (which is fairly high amongst pensioners). so the changes in numbers reflect the fact that movements from the UK are a good deal higher than those shown.
The overall percentage of British pensioners abroad has risen gradually year on year and is now 9.49%.

EMIGRATION of British STATE PENSIONERS
Country of  Immigration	% change 2002-2014	Number in 2002	Number in Feb 2013	Numbers in May 2013	Number in Feb 2014	% change 2013-2014	difference between May 2013 and Feb 2014
Jamaica*	-39.0%	23420	17690	17560	16850	-5.0%	-710
Pakistan	-47.6%	5920	4120	4100	4010	-2.7%	-90
Canada	4.9%	144830	154870	155040	152250	-1.7%	-2790
South Africa	6.3%	34960	37670	37780	37330	-0.9%	-450
Australia	10.4%	224210	250770	250990	250300	-0.2%	-690
Italy*	21.1%	30080	38160	38170	38130	-0.1%	-40
USA*	14.3%	120350	140270	140520	140410	0.1%	-110
India	25.2%	3950	5190	5210	5280	1.7%	70
Spain*	55.1%	48000	106280	106850	106890	0.6%	40
Cyprus*	57.0%	7920	18270	18380	18440	0.9%	60
Ireland*	30.1%	92520	129320	130190	132330	2.3%	2140
Germany*	33.4%	27350	39990	40330	41070	2.6%	740
Israel*	27.2%	3640	4920	4950	5000	1.6%	50
Greece*	61.9%	2190	5600	5650	5750	2.6%	100
Portugal*	52.3%	4760	9680	9780	9980	3.0%	200
France*	68.2%	19770	59620	60350	62090	4.0%	1740
N.Z.	34.9%	38640	55990	55900	59380	5.7%	3480
Switzerland*	65.1%	3910	10700	10820	11190	4.4%	370
Netherlands*	47.9%	6240	11420	11600	11980	4.7%	380

Winter Fuel payment in Europe - Dept of Work & Pensions manipulation of Statistics.

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This message has been sent to all members of the Select Committee for Work & Pensions.

From the Campaign for Representation (votes) for Britons Abroad, and
Pensioners Debout! [Stand up!] France.
Look at the end to see what you can do.   This 'tail piece' was not included to the Select Committee members.

The Winter Fuel payment in Europe
The Manipulation of WFP and Temperature statistics by the DWP .

NOTE! ---A resumé of a much larger briefing paper to be viewed here
http://www.lefourquet.net/WFP-RBpaper-V4.pdf   (if the link fails please copy and paste the address to the left in your browser)

July 2011 -  Following a European Union Court of Justice  (CJEU)* judgement which in train confirmed  that ‘old-age benefits’ for eligible British Citizens should be paid across the EU, Iain Duncan-Smith said.

“We will fight these ridiculous EU rules. The Winter Fuel Payment is about helping British pensioners with heating costs and it is ludicrous that we could have to pay more pensioners living in hot countries.”

*http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf;jsessionid=9ea7d2dc30dba4e0f84c4b0945c091cdde9cc21fd65d.e34KaxiLc3qMb40Rch0SaxuMb3z0?text=&docid=107933&pageIndex=0&doclang=EN&mode=lst&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=29792

June 2013 – George Osborne said “…. from the autumn of 2015, we will link the winter fuel payment to a temperature test; people in hot countries will no longer get it”

July 2013 the DWP said “The WFP-Temperature Link  proposal lists 7 countries (Cyprus, France, Gibraltar, Greece, Malta, Portugal and Spain) that will become out of scope for payment of WFP."

The DWP has consulted the Met Office but not the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia from where the temperature data originated. The DWP has used this data supplied by the Met Office to fit its policy. The  paper (available via the above link) details this history thoroughly.

An FoI request to request a view of the actual correspondence between the DWP and the Met Office, has been partially refused, though a copy of the Met Office report to the DWP has been received and can be read here - http://www.lefourquet.net/Report_to_DWP.pdf  [It is 70 pages in size]. (if the link fails - paste address into a browser)
The Met Office  has independently disclosed that they used the CRU data and “ the report provided two temperatures, one to include the French départements d'outre mer (DOMs), and one without. The average winter temperature for France (including the DOM's) is 7.0°C; without DOMs, it is 4.9°C.

The above report details temperature data for the SW region of England and computes an average winter daily temperature of 5.6 degrees C.  This temperature the DWP used as a standard to compare with temperatures of countries in Europe.

The chart below gives these comparisons

But in order to formulate France as  a ‘hot’ country, the DWP report  incorporates the Nov-March temperatures for the tropical French DOMs (Overseas Departments)  - i.e French Guyana, Martinique, Réunion,  and Guadeloupe [officially listed as Outermost Regions of the EU]  into the figures for mainland France. [Similar measures are used for Spain and Portugal.
This was done solely for political reasons – no other.
There is no professional geographer who would classify the DOMs as geographically part of France.
The data published by CRU (available to us) is not in agreement with the Met Office/DWP Report -
e.g for Italy the CRU gives 7.54 degrees C- The Met Office/DWP gives 5.7.- BOTH are above the 5.6 in the DWP report for SW England.  Yet the DWP has classified Italy as 'not hot'.  Statistics have been chosen to fit a policy.

To the left is the isotherm distribution for Europe (January) . The whole of  mainland France lies within the same isotherm distribution range as Britain and so does much of Spain and Italy.

The Outer Hebrides and Belfast lie on the same isotherm as Lyon.
Oddly, both Italy, and Ireland (marginally on the CRU data) have, warmer winter temperatures than SW England yet the DWP do not classify these countries as ‘hot’. Data -for Ireland CRU - 5.64 : Met/DWP  5.5
Why has the DWP  classified France and Spain as ‘hot’ and Italy (and Ireland?) as ‘not hot’? 
With Ireland, the data (from CRU or the MET?) may be related to the delicate political situation. To exclude Britons in Southern Ireland (eg Donegal) whilst retaining those in Northern Ireland would be politically unacceptable.  But there again -- to somehow define Italy as 'not hot' on these confusing set of statistics is a mystery.

Is not the true reason because the number of WFP payments for 2011/2012  are as follows?
Spain  33,815   -  France  18,155   - the two highest in Continental Europe.   The data is manipulated to save money, without consideration of the citizen.

Whilst Ireland has 7155 ,  Cyprus 5420, Portugal 2080, Italy 1425. Greece 1,405, Germany 1220, Malta 1110    ----  All other countries are below 400 each.

Aged British Citizens in straightened financial circumstances, who happen to have chosen to legally reside in other countries of the European Economic Area, recently delighted to have this extra help, would once again be deprived, unless this disgraceful affair is exposed.  These ageing Britons have no political voice, and if it were not for the concern of a very few of the more able of us, the matter would remain hidden.

Brian Cave (lefourquet@orange.fr)  (with acknowledgements to R. Boaden)  www.votes-for-expat-brits.com  http://pensionersdebout.blogspot.com

WHAT YOU CAN DO ----[This version is sent to all activists.]

Dame Anne Begg MP (Chair)	Labour
Debbie Abrahams MP	Labour
Graham Evans MP	Conservative
Sheila Gilmore MP	Labour
Glenda Jackson MP	Labour
Kwasi Kwarteng MP	Conservative
Stephen Lloyd MP	Liberal Democrat
Nigel Mills MP	Conservative
Anne Marie Morris MP	Conservative
Teresa Pearce MP	Labour
Dame Angela Watkinson MP	Conservative

1.  To the left is listed the members of the Select Committee for Work & Pensions.  Clicking in any one will raise a profile and an email address.  You can write as follows, but try to use your own phrases..
"Dear xxxx,  I am not one of your constituents* but I have no other way of stating my views. You will have received information on the manipulation of data by the DWP concerning the suspension of the WFP for people in continental Europe --- Here state your circumstances.  If you are hard up say so.  State the climate where you live. etc etc."

2.   *If you still have an MP, write also to him/her.  You can also claim attention from the MP of the constituency where you were last living in the UK.

3.  Get people to sign this petition [ http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/55085 ]  Few people realise the importance of this.

4.   Circulate this message.

Health costs and Democracy for Citizens in Europe

To go to the Index and start click here

More comment on the Government Green paper

Concerning support for health costs in the EU

An example of why the Britons Abroad  in Europe and elsewhere  need Democratic Representation.

I appreciate the comments by readers of my circulars which have caused me to consider a further analysis of the situation on the costs of health care in Europe.

It involves a digging out of information in the EU regulations.

The consultative Green Paper is entitled

“Sustaining services, ensuring fairness”

A consultation on migrant access and their financial contribution to NHS provision in England.”

1.   This Green Paper was issued in July with a date of August 28^th for the return of observations.  This is my immediate concern - The situation is unacceptable that people most affected by certain aspects are given no direct knowledge of this green paper, and no time at all to respond!

2.  The title gives no indication whatsoever that the contents also concern the health costs of British pensioners in the EU.  It is only by rare chance in October that I learned of its existence and quick action ensured that the contents were widely known.   

These concerns were particularly and rightly publicised (especially by The Connexion in France) because of the effect on the health costs of the ‘early retirees’ who would have their support for health care in the wider EU removed. 

Since then I have received comments which result in the analysis below.

The British State Pensioner abroad and treatment under the NHS.

The essence of this analysis is the ability of British State pensioners otherwise resident in other States of the EU to receive treatment under the NHS in Britain.

*See further note below for other British State Pensioners in the rest of the World.

At this present time – if you are a British State Pensioner and have at least 10 years of residence in the UK, but you happen now to be resident abroad, you are NOT entitled to free treatment under the NHS.  However many of us have received treatment in the UK.  Maybe only an eye test, sometimes more. 

[Confusion on this is introduced by the fact that the EHIC –health card – is issued by the UK to all British State Pensioners in the EU.  This card requires the UK to pay the health costs of those travelling to another EU State, which is not their resident State! Thus questioning the situation with regard to visits of pensioners to the UK.

Confusion also exists with the EU law which enables any citizen, retired or not, to travel to another State for treatment if that treatment is not available in one’s State of residence.]

The Green Paper in Annex A makes similar observations to some of the above.  It elsewhere suggests that in future the costing of  health for State pensioners in their resident  State within the EU could be thus affected:-

Clause 6.13  “The benefit to the UK of allowing state pensioners to return for their planned treatment would be a discount of 5% from payments to all countries to whom we make lump sum annual payments for our pensioners. “

The second phrase underlined relating to annual payments, refers to the EU Regulation 987/2009  and  to Annex 3 of that regulation.

This lists the States claiming payment for health treatment on the basis of fixed amounts. They are:- IRELAND, SPAIN, ITALY, MALTA, THE NETHERLANDS, PORTUGAL, FINLAND, SWEDEN, UNITED KINGDOM

It is to the countries listed above that the proposal to cut the fixed amount by 5% would apply.

All other countries claim the actual amount  and would not be affected. – e.g France, Belgium, Germany, Cyprus. etc in the EU…  The actual amount is the amount which the State of Residence has to find – not, as I have ascertained, the actual amount for the treatment as charged to the patient pensioner.  So in France the French State asks of Britain something considerably less than the full cost of the treatment to the patient.

The underlined phrase ‘planned treatment’ seems unnecessary. What is the significance of that phrase?

Then we need to look at EU Regulation 883/2004.  Annex IV to that regulation lists certain States where their Pensioner Nationals can return to their native land for health treatment [there is no reference to ‘planned treatment’ nor in the referenced article 27 here] – they are BELGIUM, GERMANY, GREECE, SPAIN, FRANCE, ITALY, LUXEMBOURG, AUSTRIA and SWEDEN.

Note that the United Kingdom is not listed.  The Green Paper would one supposes result in the UK being included in Annex IV. 

One of my correspondents has informed me that this is indeed what the Government is considering.

The result would be that qualifying Pensioners in the EU beyond the UK  could return quite legally to receive treatment under the NHS  and the confusion and uncertainties which has previously existed would be removed.

*Other qualifying  British State Pensioners resident elsewhere in the World would also benefit from a change in the regulations enabling treatment under the NHS on their occasional visits.  

The relationship of all this to the need for Representation in the Westminster Government.

If we had someone to represent us in Government then this rigmarole would not be necessary.  The DoH could consult with the representatives who would seek opinion from certain groups within each country.  A real democracy could come into being.

It is quite wrong in my view that the Government can produce such a ‘green paper’ and be apparently quite incapable of making appropriate contacts with the people most affected.

This is also so patently obvious with regard to the proposed Referendum.  This would affect the British Abroad in Europe very closely and yet are not in line to be consulted.

It is essential that we are Represented.

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/55085

The address of the DoH is

International Healthcare Team

Department of Health

3rd Floor

Wellington House

133-155 Waterloo Road

London SE1 8UG

Email    migrantaccess@dh.gsi.gov.uk

(Remember that the consultation on the green paper closed on August 28^th 2013)

The green paper is viewable at

 http://www.lefourquet.net/DoH-07-13-healthcosts.pdf