Uk Pension Increase 'With Strings'

[nam-thip]

'Decent' state pension rise planned

The Uk state pension is to rise to around £140 a week, far more than at present, it has been reported in the Daily Mail.

The proposal, to be detailed in a Green Paper before the end of the year, would particularly benefit women.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) confirmed there would be proposals for reform later this year and said the aim was to provide a "decent" pension.

The plan would end the indignity of means testing and, according to coalition sources, pay for itself, largely by reducing bureaucracy, the newspaper reported.

The present basic state pension is paid at £97.65 for a single person and £156.15 for a couple with a means-tested top-up for the poorest to give every pensioner a minimum income.

A new 'single tier' pension which would replace all existing payments would give an income of £7,280 per year or £14,560 for a pensioner couple, if paid at £140 a week, the newspaper said.

The move would be particularly good for women, who often fail to qualify for the full basic pension because they have stopped working to bring up children, and lack sufficient National Insurance contributions.

Instead it would be based on ‘residency in Britain’, it said. The new pension would come in towards the end of this Parliament, in 2015.

A DWP spokeswoman said: "The Chancellor has confirmed that the Government will improve the quality and accessibility of pensions in the Spending Review period.

"We will be bringing forward proposals for reform in a Green Paper later this year. Our aim will be a simple, decent state pension for future pensioners, which is easy to understand, efficient to deliver and affordable."

[elliss]

i think it is a smoke screen.

their main objective is to reduce spending ,

[Ricardo]

"Instead it would be based on residency in Britain".

I do hope they realise, there are some 5 million Britons who are not resident in the UK, and that a high-proportion of these are likely to be pensioners ? Or are they going to use number-of-years in which the claimant has been 'resident in Britain' ?

Potentially worrying.

[theoldgit]

The article actually says:

The payment would based on citizenship or residency, with British citizens or anybody who has been living in The UK for a fixed number of years qualifying.

Which I take to mean that you meet the requirements to actually qualify, I don't think/hope they are saying that once you have qualified for you pension you need to live in the UK to draw it.

As people say, we will have to wait for The Green Paper.

[chiang mai]

Mods: perhaps merge with a thread on the same subject, already running.

[scotsman]

This is just another torry policy to cut spending and is again unfair and unjust,this policy will also be breaking the human rights laws for all the BRITISH pensioners that live in other countries that have paid in full all there contrubutions. The good news is that this coaliton government will not be in power in 2015 I just can't see it.Now if some how this new reform was ever made law then I could see a lot of new court cases against the Government in the european court of human rights. It will cost the Government a great deal more when all the British pensioners have to come back to the uk to live and claim all there benifts. So in this new policy anyone who is living in the uk and is a british citizen even if they have never worked or paid anything to the state will get this pension at 66 but all the other British pensioners that don't live in the uk and do pay tax and have paid in full will get nothing is that a fair policy I rest my case.

Regards

Scotsman

[Beetlejuice]

Be concerned, be very concerned.

Presently the parts that mention; based on residency of this new UK state pension shakeup is unclear and not defined. Will this affect those already claiming a UK state pension? And or those who will be claiming on or after 2015? Will it be based on how long a claimant was resident in Britain, or for those already living in the UK?

A mish mash of possibilities, but no clear-cut explanations. It appears that the welfare and rights of British ex-pats is way down on the list of importance on the UK government’s agenda.

[theoldgit]

A mish mash of possibilities, but no clear-cut explanations. It appears that the welfare and rights of British ex-pats is way down on the list of importance on the UK government's agenda.

And a lot further down than overseas aid.

As I said before we need to wait for the publication of the green paper.

[Kwasaki]

Scaremongering nothing more they cannot change rights or discriminate without a time line drawn.

Same as the rise in pesion age.

[Lite Beer]

A duplicate discussion Here.