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A NEW angle from High Wycombe |
The following motion was passed
unanimously by Wycombe District Council on Monday 22 July
2002:
"This council is concerned to learn that the wishes of some of its residents to
retire overseas is being affected by the freezing of their State Retirement
Pension at the date of departure if they were to do so. Other residents retiring
overseas however have their State Retirement Pension increased with inflation
annually.
This is having an affect not only on the economic and social wellbeing of long
term Wycombe residents, but also impacting on the availability of housing as
older residents are not able to release family accommodation.
This council therefore requests Her Majesty's Government to review this
situation and remove inequalities."
I would have liked to have claimed credit for the motion but it was proposed by
another councilor with past responsibility for Housing in the Wycombe District
Council which has around 7,000 houses on its books, down from 14,000 in
pre-Thatcher years.
I will speak to the motion and offer my support with lots of information gleaned
from the BEP and BAPA resources available through all your good efforts.
The main driving force behind this motion is that Wycombe Council has a fairly
large number of people from Pakistan and Kashmir (in Asia) and St Vincent and
other countries (in the Carribean) and their pensions are not indexed if they
return to the ancestral homes.
This means that these older people, who would like to retire in their country of
origin, thereby freeing up council houses, feel they cannot because of the
frozen pension issue.
In addition, as we all know, there is the economic cost to the UK of providing
health and social security resources to elderly people, who would not be there
if they could go home with the security of an indexed pension.
At the meeting I will try to get a feel for the numbers of people in the Wycombe
District directly affected by this. It may be possible to extrapolate these
numbers for many other council districts.
There is an economic cost here - Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott announced a
couple of days ago that the UK government will spend 1 billion pounds on houses
for "key workers" in the South East of the UK over the next 5 years or so to
alleviate the housing supply problem. Surely, if people were encouraged to go
home to Pakistan and the Carribean by pension incentives through indexation, it
might provide a cost effective solution or part solution.
And at the same time provide fairness and equity for all.
I feel this might be a powerful weapon in obtaining support for the cause.
It may be possible to get an economic argument going, based on the number of
people who would like to return to their countries of origin, thereby freeing up
houses in the UK, if only they had indexed pensions. Comments are welcome.
Kind regards
Councillor Peter Morris CPA FTIA
Member for Oakridge and Tinkers Wood
Wycombe District Council (http://www.wycombe.gov.uk)
High Wycombe UK