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Finance Bill

What we want is for the Government to work out what they want to happen to pensions and to stick to that. We want them to get their pensions legislation right the first time, not to create legislation that generates whole industries, and then shut them down. Time and again, we see the Government producing legislation with a wholly predictable outcome about which they are warned in advance—yet when that outcome duly materialises, they decide that they do not like the consequence about which they were warned, and seek to amend the legislation and crack down on products that they themselves were effectively responsible for creating. This instability serves only to heighten the pensions crisis in this country. No wonder the savings ratio has halved in Britain since in 1997, when there is always a threat that the rug could be pulled from under people’s feet at any moment if the Government decide that they have got their legislation wrong yet again. These repeated blows to Britain’s savings come on top of the Chancellor’s £100 billion raid on our pension funds. The right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) has pointed out that"““when Labour came to office we had one of the strongest pension provisions in Europe and now probably we have some of the weakest?." The Chancellor should accept his share of the blame for that disastrous decline.