Jim Tilley’s old friend, the British widow living in Australia on a frozen pension of less than £7 a week, is not a statistic. She is the difference between what is right and what is wrong. If this country cannot do what is right, I have to say that I feel a great sense of shame. The denial of the money to people who have in many cases served their country and fought for it—some of their friends and families have died for this country—and who have worked here and paid their taxes, is indefensible. Their case is morally right.
5.30 pm
It cannot be right for a British expat living on one side of the Niagara Falls to have a frozen pension while, just across the water on the other side of the falls, in the United States, another pensioner is receiving an increase every year. It cannot be right that this country is prepared to pay benefits to all and sundry who come to the United Kingdom from wherever—from within or without the European Union—but continues to deny people who served this country the pension to which I believe they have a right. No one is seeking back payment, because that would be financially unrealistic, but I believe that the time has come when we must right this wrong.
The Prime Minister has defended the overseas aid budget, and I support him entirely in that. If this country, which is still one of the wealthiest in the world, cannot afford to pay some of the poorest people in the world the overseas aid that we are now paying, we ought to be ashamed of ourselves. However, if we cannot afford also to look after our own, we ought to have a deeper sense of shame.
I shall not press for a Division on the amendment. However, I hope very much that the message will go out from here to another place, and that their lordships will deal with this issue, because dealt with it must be.