We read on the BBC News website that UK Pensions are due to increase next year to reflect the fact that the Chancellor has cut the Winter Fuel Payment to most pensioners.
We were wondering if, as pensioners in France, we would receive the intended increase. We were under the impression that because we are French residents we don’t qualify for the full yearly increase.
Can someone put us right please.
Thanks.
As far as I’m aware you’ll continue to get the full annual increase, just as in previous years.
The increase normally appears in your first payment in April next year, but a month or two before, you should receive notification of exactly how much this will be.
Hi Rachel… just wondering what has made you think this… ???
I think it used to be the case/threat/belief/fear, immediately after Brexit
I’ve taken a look at the UK Govt site
UK State Pension
You can carry on receiving your UK State Pension if you move to live in the EU, EEA or Switzerland and you can still claim your UK State Pension from these countries.
Your UK State Pension will be increased each year in these countries in line with the rate paid in the UK.
You can also count relevant social security contributions made in EU and EEA countries and Switzerland to meet the qualifying conditions for a UK State Pension.
This guidance is for UK nationals, however these rules on the State Pension apply to everyone regardless of your nationality and regardless of when you moved.
Edit: I’m a UK National and a French Resident… and having read the UK Gvt blurb… I am quietly confident that my UK DWP pension will continue to be paid to me here… and that any Annual Increases will also continue to be paid…
I hope @Rachel05 can feel reassured…
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I believe it’s all to do with reciprocal agreements, which were in place before Brexit, to allow for pension uprating - between the UK and a number of other countries - which fortunately does include the EU and which has not been affected by Brexit.
Oddly a lot of retirees in Commonwealth countries such as Canada Australia and New Zealand don;t get any increases after they retire, yet if you live in the USA or Serbia you will!
Incidentally, the projected increase in April has nothing to do with the means testing of the Winter Fuel Allowance, it’s based on the so-called “Triple Lock” policy where pensions rise by 2.5%, the rise in the Consumer Price Index, or the rise in average earnings, whichever is the greater.
This time round average earnings have gone up by 4%, so that’s what the State Pension amount will increase by.
The only time the Triple Lock has not been implemented in recent years was in 2022-23, when the Government claimed that the average earnings figure for that year was “distorted” by the economy’s recovery from the pandemic.
This is just arbitrarily unfair bollox isn’t it?
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These differences are often the result of specific intra-national treaties made long ago.
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Which is bollox
Why should where one chooses to live determine whether your pension gets an inflationary uplift. It’s not as if the bloody reciprocal country is paying the pension, is it?
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Other threads have covered this and it’s absolutely outrageous.
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Not cut them in France - coz we don’t get them anyway! (Maybe you did?)
Haven’t done all the time I’ve been drawing my pension. France is a hot country according the the UK authorities, so the winter fuel payment doesn’t apply. This is absolutely true if you happen to live in Réunion 
The increase is not connected with the loss of winter fuel payment. It’s the pension triple lock arrangement that creates the increase. Yes, all of us in France will get it.
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We really appreciate all your helpful advice and information given so thanks to all.
We saw the sentence The news comes as the government faces a backlash over its decision to cut the winter fuel payment for most pensioners. Obviously we misunderstood.
We don’t know when but sometime after we came to France (in 2006) we were either told or read about not receiving the full increase each year. That was wrong and having checked the UK Govt website we confirmed that we do receive the correct payment.
We used to get the Winter Fuel Payment but then it was stopped as France was considered a ‘hot country’ - to quote @billybutcher *“Which is bollox”.
So now we are reassured that we do receive the correct pension amounts!
What IDS did when calculating the winter temperatures for France was like including Gibraltar in calculating the average UK temperature. It was just a cheap, nasty thing to do which was typical of that bunch of evil incompetents.
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As I mentioned above, they included Réunion in the assessment of French temperatures.
Even France herself excludes the DOM-TOM for qualifying for an awful lot of things. Whether it’s a measure being calculated nationally, or rules or costs for a service being provided, whether nationally or by a private / commercial provider.
The only “offshore” place in France that seems reoeatedly to get a special mention as included in things or treated the same as the France mainland=France Metropolitaine, is Corsica. Mentioned all the time quite specifically. As though normally as an offshore island it would be expected to be excluded from normal arrangements or measures. Otherwise they wouldn’t put an extra clause in all the time on thing saying La Corse * is * included. Generally Mayotte, La Réunion etc, and the other remote territories get treated separately or special provisions made.
Unfortunately the denial the UK worked out to deny Winter Fuel Allowance to their pensioners in France wasn’t just a Conservative manipulation although I do blame that $hit Ian Duncan-Smith. Meanness and “eking” have tbh been not just in that, in England.
Just to remind you that UK pensioners in Sicily will be paid WFP.