Pensions Policy — 8 Sep 2004 at 15:48

The No-voters changed the motion for debate from:

This House regrets the Government's failure to tackle the pensions crisis; expresses concern that present and former employees of Turner & Newall and those in a similar position do not know what assistance, if any, they will get from either the Financial Assistance Scheme or the Pension Protection Fund; regrets the inadequacies of Government efforts to encourage people to build up retirement savings in funded pensions; condemns the spread of means-tested benefits; draws attention to the Government's recent failure to deliver benefits to pensioners competently; further regrets the Government's wider failure to reform the welfare system for older people; notes that the National Pensioners Convention is lobbying Parliament on 8th September; and calls for Government action to tackle the crisis in funded pensions and to ensure dignity and security in retirement for older people.

to:

This House supports the Government's strategy to enable people to save securely for their retirement and to promote retirement flexibility and informed choice; welcomes the Government's Pensions Bill and Pension Protection Fund, which will bring real security for over 10 million defined benefit pension scheme members if their employer becomes insolvent and their pension scheme winds up; further welcomes the £400 million Financial Assistance Scheme which will help people who have already lost out; believes that the Pensions Bill will enable many more people to save with confidence with a new proactive pensions regulator, measures to simplify pensions legislation and improved incentives to work past the state pension age; supports the pensions tax simplification proposals being taken forward in the Finance Act 2004, which will replace eight tax regimes with one simplified system; commends proposals in the Pensions Bill to allow individuals to defer their state pension and draw it as a lump sum; welcomes measures to enable people to make an informed choice in pension provision, including new pilots to provide information and advice in the workplace; condemns the inheritance of 1997, with the legacy of pension mis-selling and millions in poverty, whereby many were expected by the previous Government to live on under £69 a week; believes that the Opposition parties' policies will be unfair to the poorest pensioners, unaffordable and unsustainable; commends the Government's historic commitment to tackling pensioner poverty; and welcomes the extra £10 billion that the Government is spending on pensioners in 2004–05 compared with the 1997 system.

which then passed automatically.

Debate in Parliament | Historical Hansard | Source |