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Steve Webb |
Grasping the reform nettle
For too long pensions were kept in the backyard of British politics. Complicated, problematic and expensive – pensions were largely ignored.
The state pension system grew more and more complex – a knotweed-like tangle of three separate elements with multiple parts. Without an earnings-linked basic pension, the state pension’s value shrunk so low that for those on the lowest incomes, the government has been forced to top it up by an extra £35 a week with pension credit just to give a decent income. Meanwhile almost two million pensioners remain in poverty.