David Willetts, Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary has called upon the Government to provide increased protection for pension scheme members where the scheme has collapsed. The Government pledged to provide £400m for the 65,000 members of collapsed pension schemes between April 1997 and May 2004.
A Pension Protection Fund will come into force in April 2005. The Department for Work and Pensions will apparently not confirm whether the Pension Protection Fund will cover those members of schemes that collapse between June 2004 and April 2005. Mr Willetts has called for unclaimed bank and building society assets to be used for the purposes of compensation, should the DWP decide not to increase the coverage of the Pension Protection Fund.
Our View
If the Government is serious about sorting out the problems associated with collapsed pension schemes, the black hole period between June 2004 and April 2005 should be covered. Whether or not bank and building society assets are used for the purpose is not ours to question. When it comes down to it, that money with banks and building societies actually belongs to someone and who are we (or the Government) to say who should receive benefits from it.
Maybe the Government should be challenging the amount of money we pour into Europe and claim some of it back to sort out our own problems.