Back to the floor
Of the House that is. After a few weeks of detailed debate in Committee earlier this year, the Pensions Bill returned to the House of Commons on Wednesday for Third Reading. Third Reading gives all MPs the chance to debate a bill for the final time before it goes to the Lords. You can read what was said here and I’ll be updating you on how the Bill now progresses in the Lords, but in the meantime, here are answers to a couple of your questions.
Pension Reform - what will it mean for me?
P Doughty - thanks for raising this question - I’m sure its one that has occured to many people on hearing the news of our reforms. Over the past months on this blog I have written a lot about the outcomes we expect for future pensioners as a result of our reforms. For example, how carers might benefit or what returns people might see for saving in a personal account. What we can’t do is give people their own individual forecasts before the Bill is fully debated by Parliament as we have no guarantee that our proposed reforms will remain unchanged when they become law. We will provide this information about individual entitlement as soon as we can. I will of course keep you posted on our progress.
National Insurance autocredits
P Doughty also asks about the future for autcredits. I can confirm that they will be phased out. National Insurance credits, known as ‘autocredits’, have been available since 1983 to men who are unemployed and aged 60 to 64. They would have become available to women after 2010 as their state pension age increases but our proposals to widen access to Basic State Pension - particularly the reduction to 30 qualifying years for a full basic state pension - will mean autocredits become largely redundant. Autocredits will be phased out in line with the staged increase in women’s State Pension age - between 2010 and 2020.
The Pension Advisory Service
Steve asks about his wife’s private pension. Although I can’t deal with queires about specific circumstances on my blog I can point Steve in a direction which I hope, he and others will find useful. The Pensions Advisory Service can help with confidential advice on specific queries about private pensions. TPAS is a not-for-profit organisation that provides free, expert information on a whole range of pensions issues.
Their website is www.pensionsadvisoryservice.org.uk and their helpline number is: 0845 601 2923.
Queries can be emailed to their “ask our experts” facility on the homepage.
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This entry was posted on Friday, April 20th, 2007 at 12:33 PM by James Purnell and categorized in General posts.
Mr J S Tulip wrote:
Dear Minister
Well done for creating this blog. I say this even though only 1 of my 4 comments has been published! But it will be really useful only if you modify your reform proposals in light of the views expressed.
On 26 March, in your post ‘Consultation closes’, you claim that over the past year you have achieved concensus around your framework for reform. But the comments on your blog suggest otherwise. Although no one is against your wish to improve the Basic State Pension of some women and carers, there have been many complaints about your apparent wish to achieve this by disadvantaging existing and past N.I. contributors, through the unfairness of your proposed 30 year rule/2010 cliff edge. People retiring before 2010 are aggrieved at getting less pension for their contributions, and those retiring after 2010 are aggrieved at having to pay unnecessary contributions in future and not being refunded wasted contributions of the past.
There must be a better way of helping your target groups, without being so unfair to everyone else. How about keeping the contribution rules as they are, but enhancing Home Responsibilities Protection?
Yours sincerely
Jim Tulip
Posted on 26-Apr-07 at 11:19 am | Permalink