Prospective Winchester MP Steve Brine has spoken out after 'political opportunism' blocked a vitally needed piece of reform to pension rules.
Earlier this week (Monday 27 October 2008) The House of Lords debated the Government’s Pensions Bill and heard a Conservative amendment from Lord Fowler, a former Secretary of State for Health that would have suspended the current compulsory purchase of annuity rule.
At present, people with personal, defined contribution pensions must buy an annuity at the age of 75 which gives a pensioner an agreed level of annual income over a given period of time.
Steve Brine (pictured) says; “The annuity rule has become hated by many pensioners who decry it as further bossy dictat from Government as to how they invest money in their retirement years. Lord Fowler's amendment called for a suspension of that rule, in light of the state of the economy. The wording of his amendment might have been inelegant, but its purpose was straightforward - a suspension rather than an abolition of the annuities rule. It was shameful the way Labour and Liberal Democrat Peers teamed up to vote this proposal down.
“Even if you are in favour of other ideas, there was no case for voting against temporary, urgent help for these elderly people. The Liberal spokesman Lord Oakeshott, who earlier this month was busy critisising Winchester City Council over its £1m Icelandic loans, led the opposition and it seems to me he might want to consider the interests of tens of thousands of worried families ahead of his own personal pride inside the House of Lords. It would seem political opportunism within the Liberal Party is not confined to Winchester.
"All our amendment asked for was a temporary stay in this hated annuity rule. To vote against that on a day the London market lost £30 billion demonstrates how utterly out of touch with the real world Labour and the increasingly irresponsible Liberal Democrats are.”