 Former ASW workers protesting in Cardiff over their pensions |
Pensions were on the general election agenda on Wednesday as new measures on company schemes came into force. The Pension Protection Fund will pay out to members of final salary or similar schemes if a firm goes bust.
But it will not cover ex-steelworkers at ASW in Cardiff, who will benefit from a separate government fund.
Labour said it was rebuilding confidence in pensions, but Tories said there was a crisis. Plaid Cymru and the Lib Dems want new "citizens' pensions".
The new fund, which came into being on Wednesday, is essentially a pension insurance plan, to which all final salary pension schemes must belong.
The UK government has said it will end the "tragedy" of workers being left with nothing if their company fails. It is not retrospective, and will not apply to ex-employees of ASW because the firm went under three years ago. Ogmore Labour MP Huw Irranca-Davies said the government had set up the fund as "a fundamental block in rebuilding people's confidence" in the pension industry.
Mr Irranca-Davies told BBC Radio Wales that when Labour came into power in 1997 only one in 50 of the "scandals" involving the mis-selling pensions had been solved, compared to "only one in 50 that hasn't been solved" today.
 Do senior citizens receive enough help from the state? |
Mr Irranca-Davies said: "The Pension Protection Fund will give security to millions of workers out there who have seen pensions fold and companies walk away from pension schemes. They can now have the confidence in their occupational pension." More generally, the Labour MP said the basic pension in 1997 was around �69 a week, while the poorest single pensioner today was on �109 and the poorest couple on �142.
'Tough decisions'
Conservative Shadow Secretary for Work and Pensions David Willetts said on Good Morning Wales that the crisis of confidence in occupational pension schemes was much greater than in 1997.
"But, the trouble is, I'm afraid this insurance scheme will not help groups such as the ASW workers," said Mr Willetts.
"Anybody whose pension got into difficulties before today will not be helped. And it's clear that the government's financial assistance scheme which is what supposed to help workers like those at ASW just isn't good enough." Mr Willetts said Tories would increase the basic state pension in relation to earnings, not prices. It would be financed through "tough decisions" such as abolition of Labour's New Deal for unemployed people because it was not working.
Plaid Cymru Caernarfon MP Hywel Williams said the pension "crisis" left one in five Welsh pensioners in poverty.
He said Plaid's "citizens' pension" would replace the existing "extremely complicated and means tested system that the government is insisting on extending".
'Complete overhaul'
Mr Williams said when his colleague Adam Price had first suggested the Pension Protection Fund it was described as a political gimmick by Welsh Secretary Peter Hain.
"That political gimmick is now government policy," said Mr Williams. "We influence debate because we have the best ideas."
Liberal Democrat Paul Warren said the pension system needed a "complete overhaul" and his party wanted a "citizens' pension" for all people aged over 75 of at least �105.45 a week.
Mr Warren, the Lib Dem candidate in Bridgend, said under the current system just 13% of women had a full basic state pension, reflecting society more than 50 years ago when men were the breadwinners and wives were dependent on their husbands.
"The Liberal Democrats will introduce �100 more on the pension every month from the age of 75 and that will take 50,000 pensioners off means testing," said Mr Warren.
The Lib Dems would fund the pension increase mostly by scrapping the "ineffective" Department of Trade and Industry, he added.
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The fund will give security to millions of workers out there who have seen pensions fold and companies walk away from pension schemes
