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Pensions Bill

Although the national insurance fund gets money in, it would not be sufficient to deal with the particular expenditures going out as a result of the change. That will have to be provided by the taxpayer. There is a surplus in the theoretical national insurance fund, but once it is spent, it is gone. It is just gone; that surplus will be spent fairly quickly. Although there will be some money coming in, the amount will not be sufficient to pay this off. In the end, it has to be a political judgment taken by a Government to say that it is a sufficient priority for them to ensure that, year on year and in the long term, pensioners are better off. We need to identify the time for that in the context of the overall state of the economy and the way in which public finances are going. We need to see how we can put all that together as part of a package. Our package involves the state changes coming into place in 2010, after which we will put in place further changes in the private sector in 2012. They are important changes.