Clause 155 - Pension rules

Part of Finance Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 3:30 pm on 8 June 2004.

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Photo of George Osborne George Osborne Conservative, Tatton 3:30, 8 June 2004

We now come to two amendments to the new concept of an alternatively secured pension. It is a fairly innocuous name for a pretty radical departure from everything that the Government and the Financial Secretary have ever said about the requirement for people over 75 to buy an annuity.

The concept of an alternatively secured pension appeared out of the blue in the second consultation paper in December 2003. It appeared without its own heading or section, and it just said in passing that

''some religious groups have principled objections to the pooling of mortality risk and need to be accommodated by the new rules. The Government, therefore, proposes to allow pension income to be delivered after age 75 through Alternatively Secured Income (ASI).''

In other words, despite the debate that we have just had in Committee, the Government are actually scrapping the requirement to buy an annuity and going a long way towards what my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs has been calling for over many years. We have trooped through the Division Lobbies on Fridays, turned up to support private Members' Bills