Anthony paid in for forty-four years. He retired to Thailand in 2011 on what was then a full state pension, having checked his contribution record twice and found nothing amiss.
What nobody told him — not the pension service, not his bank, not the forms he filled in to move — was that the figure he retired on was the figure he would be paid for the rest of his life. Thailand has no reciprocal agreement with the UK, so his pension does not rise with inflation. It has not risen since.
Fifteen years of uprating have gone to every pensioner in Britain and to every British pensioner in France, Spain or the United States. Anthony, who paid the same contributions, receives the 2011 rate.
“I don’t think anyone decided to do this to me,” he says. “I think nobody decided anything, and here we are.”