Pensions Reform

I do not think so. For reasons that I have tried to spell out and that I do not want to repeat, it is absolutely essential to maintain additional targeted financial support for the poorest pensioners; to do anything else would be quite wrong. The hon. Gentleman’s preferred solution—the citizen’s pension—would cost the taxpayer an immediate £10 billion in 2010. Unless and until he and his hon. Friends can come up with a way of financing that proposal, we should treat it with a very large dose of salt.