In 1992 the Conservative government, as part of designating social welfare benefits under EU regulatory provisions, placed Disability Living Allowance, Attendance Allowance and Carers Allowance into the category of "non-exportable benefits"... effectively ensuring that anyone taking advantage of the EU's fundamental principle of Freedom of Movement could not claim these - in some cases essential - disability financial assistance payments. In other words, if you were disabled then the moment you left Blighty's shores, your disability would miraculously disappear and you would, by some biblical miracle "rise up and walk again".
With the advent of New Labour in 1997, pro-EU and with a presumed "fairer society" attitude, those affected by the Nasty Party's previous action were confident that the discriminatory decision to assign DLA/AA/CA as non-exportable would be overturned. After all, Child Benefit was payable to immigrants working in the UK to send home to their children living in other EU countries... so surely fairness in society would permit those (many of whom were retired) to receive monies from the country they had paid their dues to for decades.
But no. Blair's New Labour was not prepared to undo the injustice of their opposition. Instead campaigners were forced to take their case to the European Commission, who instigated an investigation that resulted in a lengthy court battle, the UK government's defence being funded by the British taxpayer, through the European Court of Justice*. Finally heard in 2005, the ECJ made a ruling in 2007 that fell (mostly) in favour of the disabled claimants. DLA (care component), AA and CA were legally payable to British subjects living within the EU. DLA mobility component was denied at this point and another court case was heard and ruled on in 2011, falling in favour of the new coalition government and it remains non-exportable.
From the decision in 2007 until just before they lost power in 2010, Labour steadfastly refused to adhere to the ECJ ruling. Instead they made more and more outrageous (and quite frankly ridiculous) assertions as to why they should not pay British disabled citizens their rightful benefits. Instead individual claimants were forced through DWP appeal court cases... again funded at great cost by the UK taxpayer (ironically, quite a few Brits abroad are mandatory payers of UK tax).
Finally, once the coalition was formed in 2010, the DWP complied with the ECJ ruling on the proviso (i.e. by changing domestic social security rules) that any recipients must have made a minimum contribution into the UK's National Insurance contribution scheme. Fair enough.
So now we whizz forward to 2014, following an announcement in Osborne's 2013 Autumn Statement that the coalition (in reality, Conservatives) would remove the state pensioner winter fuel payment from Brits living in DWP-defined "hot" countries. And in order to remove the maximum number of people from the scheme, DWP Secretary of State, Iain Duncan Smith, had his minions skew their "temperature test", by the addition of French tropical islands (in the Indian Ocean and Caribbean) to artifically increase mainland France's average annual temperature by two degrees above the SW UK average on which the test is based. In reality France is below that criteria by two degrees!
Petty politics? Of course, we're taking about the Nasty Party.
On 10 December 2014, a statutory instrument (3270) was signed to amend the social security law relating to payments of winter fuel. At this point, for the uninitiated, I must just add that winter fuel payment was introduced by New Labour as a "top-up" to what was then an even more derisory basic state pension than now. Accordingly, the European Commission, which defines winter fuel payment as a "pension benefit" linked to the basic state pension, has instigated an investigation into the actions of the just dissolved government.
Meanwhile, the Labour party, hoping to take their place on the ruling benches at Westminster on 8 May, have been asked for their comments - and possible action - to correct the discriminatory wrong by English-speaking newspaper Connexion France.
Labour's response:
"Concerning the WFP it would not change the current arrangements, and would also remove it from the richest 5% of pensioners...
...because there is less money around we cannot continue to pay WFPs to the richest 5% of pensioners, but we have no plans to undo other changes to the WFP made by this government.”
Deja vu anyone?
*Note: The European Court of Justice is a separate entity from the European Court of Human Rights, which is regularly lamblasted in the right-wing press on issues such as prisoner votes.
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