Windrush 75th anniversary and pensions

That this House welcomes the 75th anniversary of the arrival of Empire Windrush at Tilbury Dock on 22 June 1948; recognises the arrival of the Windrush Generation from 1948 to 1971 is a key moment in British history; celebrates the contribution of the Windrush Generation and the Caribbean community more generally, to whom we owe a huge debt of gratitude in helping to reshape, build and transform Britain for the better; notes the conclusion of a leaked Home Office report that the origins of the Windrush scandal lay in three decades of racist immigration legislation designed to reduce the UK’s non-white population; notes with concern thousands of Windrush Generation pensioners living abroad had their pensions frozen at the lowest value, which can be less than half of the old Basic State Pension of £156.20, applicable to those who’ve reached state pension age before 6 April 2016 and only a third of the new State Pension of £203.85; further notes that these are not uprated when UK pensions are increased annually for the more than half a million British pensioners living overseas, despite the Government’s estimated cost to do so being 0.3 per cent of the annual pensions budget; believes the freezing of pensions is unjust, unfair, discriminatory and reflects a betrayal of the Windrush Generation; and calls on the Government to ensure that all pensioners living abroad, many of whom have made lifelong payments to their state pensions, should receive the same annual increases as pensioners living in the UK.