Engagements

Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Prime Minister – in the House of Commons at 11:30 am on 15 October 2008.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of William Hague William Hague Shadow Secretary of State (Foreign Affairs) 11:30, 15 October 2008

We understand why the Prime Minister is not here today. I am glad that the right hon. and learned Lady is not complacent, because she wrote in her blog in February that

"people know that there is global financial turbulence but are not worried about their own prospects in 2008".

Perhaps she will now acknowledge that that is no longer the situation. If she will not adopt our proposed measures on insolvency, may I ask her about another group of people who have been hit by the economic crisis in recent days? They are the people who have retired from their jobs. One such group is the pensioners who are forced to buy an annuity on reaching retirement or on reaching the age of 75. They will be locked into a lower income for the rest of their lives. Last week, we proposed suspending the rule on this, and Ministers said that they were looking at the proposal. Will the right hon. and learned Lady now cut through the delay, announce a decision by the Government and tell us that the Government will suspend that rule in order to help the incomes of thousands of pensioners into the future?

Annotations

Lee Maguire
Posted on 20 Oct 2008 10:34 am (Report this annotation)

Reference is being made to the following post: http://blog.harrietharman.org/2008/02/working-with-scottish-...