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CPI/RPI Pensions Uprating

I scoured the Welfare Reform Bill Committee discussions on that point, and as I understand it, those on the Labour Front Bench made it clear that they were not going to write their manifesto in advance of 2015. The hon. Lady can be assured, however, that I shall be pressing for that policy to be adopted. Let me press on with Jim's example. The guide to his pension—the ““principal civil service pension scheme, classic””, as it is called—was published by the civil service in 2009. It explained that his pension would be ““index-linked””. On page 24, the guide explained that this index-linking meant that"““your pension is guaranteed to increase in line with inflation, as measured by the retail price index””." When he heard that the Government had changed the index-linking of his pension to CPI, he wrote to the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General, the right hon. Member for Horsham (Mr Maude). He received the following reply:"““In hindsight, because the Minister has the discretion to decide which indicator best reflects the general level of prices, perhaps the booklet should have been drafted differently””." That gives no satisfaction to Jim, who has lost so much money. He worked for 35 years with a guarantee of RPI, then, within a year of reaching his 60th birthday, the Government reneged on that guarantee. Over his retirement, the switch from RPI to CPI will not just be a minor change to an inflation indicator. For him, the switch will cost thousands.