Fwd: Commonwealth meeting

[Chris Hill]

Great letter Clive but shouldn't you at the end be asking that it's put on the agenda for discussion at the meeting?

Regards Chris

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: clive walford <clid...@yahoo.com>
Date: Mon, Jun 13, 2022, 16:07
Subject: Commonwealth meeting
To: clive walford <clid...@yahoo.com>

sent thefollowing to neice in UK to post for me. sent copy to dept also. dont expect old Charlieboy boy will see it but you have to try!

Your Royal Highness, The Prince of Wales, and

Duchess of Cornwall.

            May I draw your attention to war veterans that  have been “abandoned” by the Secretary of state for Work and Pensions Thérèse Coffey, MP and Guy Opperman MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Work and Pensions.

            These “abandoned” war veterans that served their King and Country laid their lives on the line, for our, the Queens subjects, future freedom from a dictatorial regime. Many of their comrades in arms did not come back from that conflict. We, with pride, particularly remember them annually at the Remembrance Day Anniversary services.

            War veterans, on return from their war efforts then joined the “army” of workers to put the UK back, successfully, “on the map”. In 1946 they, (as did all workers), joined the new Pension Scheme. (That was at that time referred to by many as, “a reward for those returning from the war”). The scheme as conceived by David Lloyd George in the early 1900’s as an assurance that when workers retired they would get “a basic living income until their death”.

            The UK primary legislation is that the pension is paid world-wide for those that reach pension age and has the required number of contributory year’s. {The NIS fund from which the pension is paid, is and has always been maintained by the CONTRIBUTIONS from the workers’ salaries, employers and the gov’t. as agreed within the Act. (The gov’t dropped out of payment when the fund was enough to maintain its legally required balance level).

            So you may ask, sir why are war veterans “abandoned”?

There are 500,000 pensioners, including some war veterans, living overseas that do not get their pensions uprated annually as do pensioners living in the UK, and 600,000 other pensioners also living overseas, (i.e. not frozen).

            The uprating or non-uprating of pensions is decided by secondary legislation in the annual DSS Bill for increases in payments. The gov’t decreed that uprating to pensions will only apply to those living in countries where there is a reciprocal agreement. The DSS in 1966 pointed out no agreement was necessary to uprate pensions, it is a domestic issue. However, the gov’t , (that eventually agreed  it is only domestic legislation used),continued to withhold uprating to those in the countries as before.

            Sir, there is much more that can be said on this subject, the gov’t will dispute every argument for paying the fully entitled pension to all pensioners regardless of where they live. Gov’t  manifesto, “equality, fairness and justice for all”.  ?? A war veteran on the same pension of £40 he received 30 years ago? Many commonwealth countries are affected with the frozen pension this gov’t follow. But not all. (More than 90% of the ‘frozen’ pensioners live in Commonwealth countries), Where is the “equality, fairness and justice for all”, in that? 

[Jo Oddie]

Well written, thank you

Jo

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[Richard Denton]

Woo Hoo Clive best letter yet. Let’s hope HRH Charles boots that up the line to BoJo. He does though have to be careful not involving himself in politics. Suggest you send the letter to BPiA and they could get the UK lobby organisation to get it into the public domain via leading media.
Richard

Sent from my iPhone X

On 14 Jun 2022, at 1:43 pm, 'Jo Oddie' via BAPA <bapa...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

 Well written, thank you

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[Terry Stretton]

Well written but will it have any affect on Govt. DONT THINK SO

Reagrsdf Terry

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[George Morley]

Well  Terry It won't if nobody does anything ?? , George.

[clive_walford]

Thank for your support all. i see Prince Charles is in the newspapers again. (suggest read  and think what to tell him today!) https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-61808445 (copy and paste). Good question Terry. I am going to follow up on the letter and will of course send a draught for experienced old owls to comment on!  . More freedom as a Prince than when King, does cry out for some action. personally, I think the gagging of royalty does need re-considering the rules laid down by past politicians and the new  bunch will be sharpening their knives  just in cise P. Charles even farts too loud. I think Charles is wise enough to know when to bite his tounge but I think he also has a mind to speak out in an appropriate manner, not about the politics but more on "humanitarian and other type" grounds. the queen was pretty good at "hints" in her limited "permission" to speak!

So as Terry says, who’s going to do what? i think there are two areas to dig into. Top rung position is in my mind the frozen war veterans/frozen expats/equality laws and "we all paid in" and emphasis on the Pension IS an entitlement.The government response to the petition was that the pension is not an entitlement and never was. Not true of course but every FP, individuals’  and groups  should go flat out to prove your entitlement is a fact. This is not necessarily  aimed at Charles but an important,  "by the way Charley boy did you know your government, (?) think it’s not an entitlement. Well Charley old chap what do they think we were making contributions to keep the fund in balance all our working lives for? (what it is this year? £40 odd billion?").

i know that there are some real knowledgeable frozen pensioners in the group that have much experience and knowledge of the long drawn out offensive policy in this issue. I think those guys are "the older and wiser" FPs. Remember BAPA were the first campaigners. Keep the BAPA flag flying!

            The second area is the commonwealth. With the rumblings from some about moving out of the commonwealth, it could be a chance to campaign to keep them in and crucify the government for causing the possible break up. How can there be some frozen, some not frozen, pensioners in one great FAMILY?

Check out the Commonwealth Office description of what they do and hack that to pieces!  I hope this is going to be the start of something big. Get the Commonwealth unfrozen then double your efforts for the like of poor old me and other non-Commonwealth pensioners.  The question is can we make PC speak out before he puts on the gagging crown?  God save the Queen and God help the next King if he doesn't support us some way!!

Regards to all FPs. Clive.

[alexander whitehead]

CHARLEY IS NOT MY DARLING .IF WE ARE NOT ENTITLED TO A PENSION WHAT DID WE PAY ALL THOSE STAMPS FOR ALL THOSE YEARS ???/ YOU KNOW AND I KNOW WE ARE JUST PAWNS IN LIFES GAME OF NOTS AND HAVE NOTS, THEY HAVE THE POWER WE HAVE THE SOWER ??/ CONFUCIUS HE  SAY  MAN WHO THINKS HE HAS THE RIGHT,,,READ THE SMALL PRINT    ALEXANDER WHITEHEAD 

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