LABOUR REVEAL
‘COALITION PENSION CON’
‘Beith needs to explain why he didn’t
come clean when 80% of the people he claims would benefit from his unfair
changes to the state pension may lose out’ – Scott Dickinson, Labour
Labour PPC for Berwick Scott Dickinson has revealed his fears
that the ‘coalition’ policy announcement that state pensions would rise under
coalition plans highlighted by Lib Dem MP Alan Beith last week was a ‘ticking
time bomb for pensioners’
Beith claimed that 63,000 pensioners would benefit from
coalition plans to make the state pension more complicated yet a respected
‘independent’ website THIS
IS MONEY has raised fears that as many as 4 out of 5 pensioners won’t see
the ‘Beith Boost’ when it is due to be introduced in 2016. It says highly
complicated and technical changes may see public sector workers hit hardest.
Public sector retirees will be hardest hit and Labour are
highlighting the huge impact that would have on North Northumberland where over
30% of those in employment rely on public sector wages.
Beith claimed the rise in the state pension to £155 in 2016
would benefit 63,000 people in North Northumberland yet it has emerged that
more than 50,000 may miss out of the pension boost.
Scott Dickinson said
‘It’s a typical, back of the envelope, piece of shoddy spin
to claim that thousands of people in North Northumberland will benefit from a
pension rise that the government hasn’t even worked out the impact of. The
reality is that because of technical and highly complicated tinkering with the
state pension rules, this government has created a situation where over 50,000
people in North Northumberland may not get a full state pension. It seems that
Alan Beith doesn’t even know the potentially devastating impact of his own
policy’.
NOTES FOR EDITORS