Lord Davies of Brixton, a member of an All Party Parliamentary Group lobbying for change said: “It’s clearly an injustice to anyone who comes across it.
“The Government hides behind this reciprocal agreement excuse but what’s important about the Canadian case is that the Canadian government has said it’s prepared to negotiate a reciprocal agreement and it’s the British government who are saying ‘no, we don’t want one’.
“You can’t say the only reason we don’t do it is because we don’t have a reciprocal agreement if you’re not prepared to even enter into discussions, it’s clearly a blanket ban.”
One hurdle the proposed extension faces is the huge perceived cost. This year pensioners in the UK received a 10.1pc boost to their payments as a result of the triple lock, and there are concerns about the sustainability of such rises as Britain’s population ages and its labour force begins to shrink.
Recent analysis from the Institute for Fiscal Studies estimated that the triple lock in its current form could see the annual cost of funding the state pension surge by up to £45bn. This year, following the record 10.1pc rise, the total cost of the state pension will stand at £110bn.
But Ms Telford said the cost of indexing pensions in additional countries would be miniscule in comparison to the total figures involved. Recent ONS analysis estimates extending the protections to expats who are not yet covered would add £860m onto this year’s state pension bill.
Nigel Nelson, a campaigner with the International Consortium of British Pensioners, said: “Right now there’s roughly £81bn in reserves in the National Insurance Fund, each year those reserves are growing since contributions to the fund exceed payments from it. Clearly, the UK can afford to uprate frozen state pensions – so, why won’t it?”
There is not a National Insurance “fund”, as understood in the conventional manner, and those who argue against the triple lock point to Britain’s worrying demographic trends that suggests state pensions will soon become unaffordable.
The campaigners also point out that in the face of their purchasing power being eroded by inflation, many expats may be forced to return to the UK for lack of means in their twilight years.
This outcome, they note, in light of care and medical needs, would likely cost the Government many times more than the bill tied to extending the triple lock mechanism.
