Sir Keir Starmer refused to meet a World War Two veteran who travelled 5,000 miles to see him after she had £60,000 wiped off her state pension.

Anne Puckridge, who turns 100 this month, has had her pension frozen since 2001 when she retired and moved to Canada to be nearer to her family.

She is among nearly half a million British pensioners whose pensions have been frozen at the level when they left the UK.

Mrs Puckridge currently receives a state pension of £72.50 a week instead of the £169.50 if she had remained in Britain.

She travelled from Calgary, Canada to Westminster this week to meet the Prime Minister and to lobby the government.

However, her request to meet Sir Keir Starmer was turned down because of ‘pressures on his diary’ with pensions minister Emma Reynolds agreeing to a meeting, the BBC reports.

Mrs Puckridge said she was left ‘bitterly disappointed’ and ‘disgusted’ after the meeting.

She said Ms Reynolds had been ‘polite enough and kind enough to come in and spend her time with us but I think her mind was made up before we even started the meeting’.

Mrs Puckridge, who served in an air defence unit and decoded messages as an officer in the Women’s Royal Indian Naval Service during the war, lived and worked in the UK until the age of 76, paying all her taxes including national insurance.

Mrs Puckridge estimates she has lost around £60,000 over 23 years due to the lack of inflation uplift.

She said: ‘I simply wish to outline to the Prime Minister that we unfairly suffer through no fault of our own.

‘At my age, I have not made the decision to travel such a great distance back to the UK lightly.

‘My request to the Prime Minister, that he meet with me, is not for my personal benefit, but is a request made on behalf of more than 450,000 ‘frozen’ pensioners around the world suffering as much, and in many cases far more, than me.

‘Once so very proud of being British, I now feel ashamed of my country.’

A petition calling on Sir Keir Starmer to meet her gathered more than 130,000 signatures and a total of 32 UK parliamentarians signed a pledge calling on the Prime Minister to meet the veteran.

Her supporters include actress and activist Dame Joanna Lumley, who said: ‘Times may be tough and challenging. But I urge the powers that be to be mindful that many of those affected by this cruel policy served Britain through even tougher times.

‘I think swathes of the country will find it simply unthinkable that brave men and women such as Anne should be treated this way.’

Tonia Antoniazzi, Labour MP for Gower, has been a long-time advocate for ending the frozen pensions policy, and said: ‘The more I hear about this policy the more indefensible it becomes.

‘For decades now, successive governments have hidden behind figures from the DWP (Department for Work and Pensions) suggesting that righting this great wrong would cost billions. That is simply not the case.

‘The pensioners are only asking for uprating from this point going forward. Campaigners estimate that uprating on such a going forward basis would cost about £50 million in the first year, a tiny proportion of the overall pensions budget.

‘In Treasury terms, that’s a small price to pay to address such a great and long-standing injustice that’s hit generations of pensioners.

‘In all conscience, how can any of us look someone like Anne Puckridge in the eye and not feel that she deserves better.’

A Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)spokesperson said: ‘We are deeply proud of our veterans and their families for the contribution they make to our country. Theirs is the ultimate public service, and their professionalism and bravery is rightly respected across the world.

‘We understand people move abroad for many reasons, and we provide clear information on how this can impact their finances in retirement – with the policy on the uprating of the UK state pension for recipients living overseas a longstanding one.’

All British state pensioners receive their pension based on both their compulsory and voluntary contributions to the National Insurance Fund.

Pensioners living in the UK benefit from an annual increase, known as the ‘triple lock,’ which guarantees the higher of the increase in Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation, average earnings growth, or 2.5%.

However, pensioners who move abroad face different rules for uprating. In most countries, there is no annual increase to the pension.

The UK state pension continues to rise in the same way as it does for pensioners in the UK only in the following countries: European Union nations (which continued post-Brexit), Switzerland, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Barbados, Bermuda, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Guernsey, Isle of Man, Israel, Jamaica, Jersey, Mauritius, Montenegro, North Macedonia, the Philippines, Serbia, Turkey, and the United States.

Most British Commonwealth countries have their pensions frozen, including Australia, Canada, South Africa, New Zealand, and India, as well as British overseas territories like the Falkland Islands. Thailand is also on this list.

If pensioners return to the UK, they can apply to the Department for Work and Pensions to have their pension uprated to the full amount, but this adjustment is only applicable while they remain in the UK.