How is Westminster a threat to your pension?
According to the UK Westminster Parliament’s own library statistics, the UK’s state pension is “providing a lower level of pension than most other advanced economies relative to average earnings”.
And according to a report by the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association, the UK state pension is not big enough to support the bare minimum standard of living for a single person. The report also states that the income required to maintain a basic standard of living is £12,800.
Yet the UK’s state pension will only rise to £10,600 for those on the full rate – lagging behind that of the OECD average and most developed countries.
Under the Westminster government, pensions are under threat.
The Tory government broke its own 2019 Tory manifesto pledge and scrapped the ‘triple lock’ on pensions, which means pensioners are losing out on around £520 a year until 2026.
Under Liz Truss’ government, pension funds – which manage vast sums on behalf of retired people across Britain – almost collapsed, coming close to an “unprecedented” meltdown because of the Tories’ reckless and unfunded tax cuts for the rich.
And currently, the UK Westminster government is planning to raise the working age to 68 – a stark contrast to the ‘No’ campaign’s claims in 2014 that ‘pensions are safer in the UK’.
But it’s not just under Westminster Tory governments that pensions and pensioners have been treated so shabbily.
In the previous Labour Westminster government Gordon Brown abolished tax relief on dividends for pension funds estimated to have cost an additional £230 billion.
And the last Labour Westminster government refused to accept the findings of the pension ombudsman that DWP guidance on company pension schemes had been “inaccurate, incomplete, unclear and inconsistent”.