Pensions and BenefitsFair Pensions and Benefits |
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Over £100 more on the pension every month at 75 – a million pensioners off means-testingMillions of elderly people are failing to receive the pensions they’ve earned – and deserve and need – because of demeaning and unworkable means tests. Liberal Democrats will simplify the system, immediately guaranteeing a basic pension at 75 of at least £109.45 per week, with future increases linked to earnings. That’s over £100 a month more at 75 for every single pensioner. Every pensioner couple over 75 will receive at least £167.05 per week state pension – over £140 a month more than at present. This will abolish the need for means tests altogether for a million people. |
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Citizen’s PensionMany women who gave up work to bring up their children receive as little as a penny a week because they haven’t paid enough national insurance. From the age of 75 we will give pensioners our increased ‘Citizen’s Pension’ as of right, making sure that 2.8 million women pensioners have security and dignity in retirement. |
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Help pensioners by axing the Council TaxToo often, pensioners are forced to pay huge Council Tax bills despite being on low incomes, and many will be faced with further massive increases due to revaluation. Replacing Council Tax with Local Income Tax means eight out of ten pensioners will be better off and six million poorer pensioners will pay no local tax at all. Unlike the other parties’ proposals, no one will be denied help simply because of their age or who they live with – everyone will only pay what they can afford. |
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Help working parents spend more time with their childrenBecoming a parent for the first time is a daunting and expensive task. Giving new working parents more support has benefits for them, their babies, their employers and the economy. Liberal Democrats will give working families having their first child increased maternity pay for the first six months at the rate of the minimum wage – that’s £170 a week instead of £102.80 at present, a lot more just when parents really need it. |
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Reform the New Deal to get more people into workThe present New Deal leaves too many people on unnecessary or ineffective schemes rather than getting them into real jobs. Liberal Democrats will instead tailor the assistance so that jobseekers receive the package of support they need to get proper, permanent work. We will also scrap benefit sanctions which leave genuine claimants unable to feed and house themselves. |
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Scrap the Child Support AgencyThe CSA is failing. Some parents are required to pay an unrealistic amount for maintenance, whilst other payments are never enforced. We would scrap the CSA and hand over its initial assessment and enforcement functions to the Inland Revenue so that payment is enforced fairly and effectively. Special circumstances would be addressed by appeal to a specialist tribunal able to take account of individual circumstances, instead of the present unfair rigid formula. |
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Provide more support for people with disabilitiesMany severely disabled people feel the cold intensely and cannot afford to heat their homes adequately, despite the fact that the cold will often make their conditions worse. We will help severely disabled people of working age with their fuel bills by giving them the same £200 a year Winter Fuel Payment that pensioners receive. We will also implement the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Long-Term Care to guarantee free personal care for people with disabilities who need it. |
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Private and public sector pensionsMore than 60,000 workers worked for companies that have gone out of business leaving insufficient money in their pension funds. We will bolster the government’s compensation scheme to make sure that these workers are compensated at the same level available under the new Pension Protection Fund. Unlike Labour, we will give proper time for consultation before making changes to existing public sector pension schemes, and we will honour the entitlements already built up. |
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Beating fraud and errorEach year, around £3 billion is lost to the taxpayer due to fraud and error in the social security system – £100 for every taxpayer every year. The new tax credits could add a further £1.6 billion to that loss. We will reverse the spread of mass means-testing, simplify the benefits and tax credit system, and extend fraud prevention and detection activities to all benefits, reducing both fraud and error. |
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Every week I am contacted by people needing help with problems caused by the unfair and complex pensions and benefits system. |
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I receive letters from pensioners in poverty, struggling with unfair and demeaning means tests, or forced to pay for the care they need. I hear from women denied even the basic pension simply because they took time out of work to care for their children. |
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Then there are letters from people who want work to support themselves, fobbed off with government ‘New Deal’ schemes that just don’t give them the training and skills they need to get a job. Letters from workers who are angry that they have been robbed of their company pensions. Letters from people with severe disabilities who are at their wits’ end because of the bureaucracy and complexity of the benefits system. |
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We are all growing older. Anyone can be suddenly disabled. These days no job is for life. Everyone wants to know that there is a safety net if they, or their family, need it – but equally, no one wants to pay benefits to cheats, or keep people on the dole longer than necessary. |
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Yet, over and over again successive governments have just complicated the system, hitting decent people with unfair and demeaning means tests and sanctions, introducing computer ‘systems’ that don’t work – and yet have still failed to tackle the frauds effectively. |
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Before entering Parliament, I was Professor of Social Policy at Bath University, studying the mistakes governments kept making. Since being elected, I have sought to use my professional skills to develop alternatives that will work – plans that will guarantee everyone a decent old age, help when they are disabled or lose their job, and a decent start for every child. |
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These principles of fairness and opportunity are close to the hearts of the British people, and are values held deeply by Liberal Democrats. In one of the richest countries in the world, we should not settle for less. Steve Webb - Liberal Democrat Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions |
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I am appalled that in the fourth richest country in the world, so many pensioners, particularly older women, are trapped in so much poverty. I left the Labour Party and joined the Liberal Democrats four years ago because the more I saw Labour failing in action, the more I realised it was time to face the truth: that the Liberal Democrats are now the only party I can trust to deliver the decent pensions, and above all the free care when it’s needed, to guarantee everyone dignity and security in retirement Claire Rayner - President of the Patients Association and member of the Royal Commission on Long-Term Care for the Elderly |
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Green Action |
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Save energy and cut fuel billsThousands of people – mostly pensioners – die each year from preventable cold-related illnesses. On average, around fifty people die unnecessarily in each constituency every year. Poor home insulation and poor-quality housing lead to cold homes and high fuel bills, the main causes of this ‘fuel poverty’, while the average pensioner household spends £500 a year on energy. |
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| We will help pensioners and severely disabled people cut this bill by allowing them to take a year’s Winter Fuel Payment as a voucher redeemable against insulation and energy saving materials. These would be made available at about half price through a partnership with fuel suppliers. A pensioner could save more than £100 from their energy bill every year by investing just one year’s Winter Fuel Payment, and help the environment as well. In this way we will invest in cutting energy use and at the same time help pensioners and severely disabled people stay warm and save money. |