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Around half a million British expats receiving pensions may have fallen victim to the UK government’s policy that frozen pensions are not updated annually inline with inflation.
Between 1994 and 2010 the British Government have been accused of paying widows of frozen pensioners less that widowers of frozen pensioners.
This issue has been given greater prominence due to the case of a French Canadian woman called Alma Yates whose husband Hugh died in Canada in 2002.
The Telegraph reported that, “When Mr Yates died in 2002, his wife was designated a Category B female pension of £13.30 a week, in line with the frozen pension Mr Yates had received ever since he emigrated to Canada in 1972.
“But she claimed that her pension would be payable at the much-higher rate of £75.50 a week if she were treated on a par with male Category B pensioners, who were instead paid at the current, inflation-linked UK rate in force at the time of their spouse’s death.”
The case eventually came before Judge Nicholas Paines QC of the Upper Tribunal Administrative Appeal Chamber who found in favour of the now late Ms Yates and ordered the Department for Work and Pensions to pay £19 000 for the losses suffered.