---

Occupational Pensions

That series of interventions by the hon. Gentleman was probably worse than his contribution on the ““Today? programme. All that he may end up saying is that the Chancellor successfully achieved the opposite of what he intended, but it was not such a bad thing after all. The Chancellor committed two great sins of commission by imposing a heavy burden of taxes on pension funds and introducing extensive means-testing, but he committed an even greater sin of omission, which was the failure to cope with the growing issue—I would not call it a problem; it is a good thing that people are living longer—of longevity. The Government failed to address that for their first eight years in office. Why is that? I suspect that it is in large measure to do with their misrepresentation of the pension proposals that we published ahead of the 1997 election. Having so grossly and grotesquely misrepresented our proposals for reform, they could not return to the issue until it was all in the past, when they came back with something not entirely different from what I had proposed. It is a case of dishonesty being the root of a failure to act subsequently. I believe that on this issue the Chancellor has revealed his failures of judgment and unwillingness to accept when he has made mistakes. It is time to drive home to him that he seriously damaged the glories of the pension system that we had in this country by taxing it, means-testing it and failing to adapt to the longer life expectancy that we all now enjoy.