Anne Puckridge, a 98-year-old WW2 veteran, receives a weekly pension of £72.50, far below the current basic state pension, which by April will reach £156.20per week. Why? Because at the age of 76, Anne moved to Canada to be closer to her family in old age. In doing so, she inadvertently became one of 500,000 Britons, and one of 60,000 military veterans, who are cruelly denied their full UK state pension by the British Government.

Those in some Commonwealth countries, British Overseas Territories and other affected nations have their state pension frozen at the rate it was when they left the UK, or when they retired if they left the UK before pensionable age. British pensioners living in places such as the US and Jamaica and the European Union receive their full UK state pension which is annually uprated - as these countries have reciprocal social security agreements with the UK.

However, the UK Government continues to refuse to enter into any new agreements – agreements that would end this pension injustice for all.

This policy can have a devastating impact on the lives of those affected and, for some, the income lost can mean a retirement of poverty. For Anne, it means she has lost a total of £41,000 since 2001. It adds insult to injury that the UK Government has rejected multiple requests from the Government of Canada to enter into a reciprocal deal that would give people like Anne her rightful pension.

Frozen pensioners expected, like all of us, that when it was time to retire, they would receive the pension they deserve, paid for and are entitled to. This is not the case.

I am being supported by Silver Voices and the End Frozen Pensions campaign to call on all political parties to agree to end frozen pensions through entering into new reciprocal social security agreements as soon as possible.

They paid in. Now it is time to end the callous, immoral, and unjustifiable policy once and for all.

Thank you.