Government misleads pensioners

Minister admits simple flat-rate state pension is neither simple nor flat-rate
Pensions minister, Steve Webb has revealed that he had been “guilty of over- simplifying” the new single-tier state pension in order to emphasise its appeal. In an interview with the Daily Telegraph, Mr Webb explained that this autumn, more than a million people in their late fifties and early sixties will receive a letter telling them they will receive less than the full £155 a week promised under the flat-rate state pension.An estimated 1.94m	people are expected to retire in the first five years of the new pension scheme; set to be introduced in April 2016, but at least one million will have their pensions reduced. Anyone who contracted out of the state second pension/SERPS and into a company scheme will be affected. Whilst it has always been the case that those contracting out of the state scheme would get less from it when they retired, many believed that after 2016, everyone would get the	new state pension of £155 a week. Under the old scheme, everyone received the basic state pension providing they had paid national insurance for the required number of years, but now it seems each individual’s state pension could be different - depending on how generous their occupational scheme might be. Mr Webb admitted that had this explana- tion of how the scheme would work been made clear at the time “people might have switched off”	He went onto say “Some people will get more (than £155 a week) and others less.” Ron Douglas, NPC president said: “It is clear that the new so- called simple, flat rate state pension is neither simple, nor flat-rate.” “The only thing we can be sure of is that the government has misled millions of future pensioners by suggesting that everyone would get a state pension of at least £155 a week.” Figures suggest 80% of future retirees won’t get the full amount
From the Campaign bulletin of the National Pensioners Convention Cameron trying to count