{"id":48792,"date":"2014-10-15T17:22:52","date_gmt":"2014-10-15T17:22:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?guid=a5202cfe7795e4d01c84144fb05e6a99"},"modified":"2014-10-15T17:22:52","modified_gmt":"2014-10-15T17:22:52","slug":"speech-pm-speech-at-age-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?p=48792","title":{"rendered":"Speech: PM speech at Age UK"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I wanted to come today to talk about how we help older people, how we make sure we have a strong pension system, and how we address the concerns that you have. And let me start by thanking Age UK<\/a> for all the brilliant work that you do. It really is a fabulous organisation. We all see that in our own constituencies.<\/p>\n

I often talk about the long term economic plan that we have to turn the country around, and I\u2019d argue that with unemployment coming down, with the economy growing, with the deficit being reduced, that that plan is working. But people often say to me, \u201cWell that all sounds very well but what does this long term economic plan mean for me and for my family?\u201d And what I\u2019m trying to do now is explain how this plan converts into a plan for you and your security and your future stability. <\/p>\n

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\"David<\/div>
David Cameron at Age UK, London<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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See the full set of images from David Cameron\u2019s visit to Age UK.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Pensions security<\/h2>\n

And today is a big day for pensions in the UK, because we\u2019re making some important announcements and changes. There\u2019s an announcement about what will happen to the basic state pension next year and how much it will go up by. And there\u2019s an announcement, because we\u2019ve announced our Pensions\u2019 Bill today<\/a>, about the extra freedoms we\u2019re going to give people to tap into their savings and their pension as they grow older. And I want to talk about both those things, but I think too often we politicians, we talk about technical issues and technical facts and figures rather than the values and the thinking that lie behind them. And to me there are some very simple values we should be thinking about when we\u2019re talking about how we want to see pensioners treated in our country.<\/p>\n

And I think the first one is security. Security and stability. If you\u2019ve worked all your life you need to have a really predictable situation as you get older because you can\u2019t suddenly dive back into the work force or earn lots of extra money to help pay for some extra thing the government has laid on you. So this security and stability is really important. And that\u2019s why we introduced the triple lock for the basic state pension. We said that the pension will always go up by either prices or earnings or 2.5%, whichever is the higher.<\/p>\n

Now, today the inflation figure has come out, and it\u2019s a good and low inflation figure, which we\u2019re all pleased about. So it\u2019s almost at 1.2% meaning the pension next year will go up by at least 2.5%. That is an increase of \u00a3150 in the basic state pension, almost \u00a33 a week, twice the rate of inflation. That means that since I\u2019ve been Prime Minister we would have seen the basic state pension go up by \u00a3950. It will have gone up by a good \u00a3440 more than if we\u2019d just up rated it by earnings. And I think that is a good and fair way to arrange our pensions so that people have security and stability about the future.<\/p>\n

I would say, because it was at a meeting like this that I made the promise, we also made a series of promises at the last election that we said during this parliament we would keep the Winter Fuel Payments, the free television license, the bus pass, the pensioner benefits, and we\u2019ve kept all those benefits in full, and I\u2019m glad that we kept that promise. So we are balancing the budget, we\u2019re dealing with the deficit, but we\u2019re not doing it on the back of British pensioners.<\/p>\n

Flexibility<\/h2>\n

The second key value is responsibility. I think if you\u2019ve worked hard and saved during your life you deserve responsibility in retirement about how you spend the money that you\u2019ve worked so hard for and saved so hard for. And that\u2019s why we\u2019ve made a series of announcements this year, first of all saying you no longer need to buy an annuity. It\u2019s your money; you should be able to spend it as you choose. We also made the announcement that if you want to you can pass on your pension pot tax free to your children, instead of having to pay 55% tax on it. And today, in the pension reform Bill that we\u2019re publishing, we\u2019re explaining that as well as the current practice of taking a lump sum and then having a drawdown income, we\u2019re saying you could take out a series of lump sums, rather than having to do it in one go. It is additional flexibility; additional responsibility. And I think that\u2019s right. I think it\u2019s right to say to people who\u2019ve worked hard and saved hard that it\u2019s your money, you can choose to do with it as you wish. <\/p>\n

Very important that we provide guidance and that you\u2019re able to access good advice, and we\u2019re making announcements about that today, because these things are complicated. That\u2019s why I brought my experts with me, Steve Webb and Iain Duncan Smith and Ros Altmann\u2019s here. But I think advice and guidance is very important.<\/p>\n

New \u2018single tier\u2019 State Pension<\/h2>\n

The third value alongside security and responsibility is dignity. I think people who\u2019ve worked hard, who\u2019ve done the right thing, who\u2019ve saved do deserve dignity, not having to sign up for extra benefits; they should get them as of right. And that\u2019s why I think one of the biggest reforms that we\u2019re making, that I\u2019m really proud of, is what was called the Single Tier Pension<\/a>, and what is going to be called the new State Pension, which basically means that when future generations retire, that instead of getting the \u00a3113 a week, soon to go up to \u00a3115, plus the pension credit, you\u2019ll get a single tier pension which will be north of \u00a3148 in one go.<\/p>\n

Why I think this is so powerful is that it means we can say to everyone in our country that every penny you save in your working life won\u2019t count against you in retirement; you\u2019ll be able to spend it on your own retirement, in your own way. So I think the single tier pension is going to bring enormous amounts of dignity and security to future generations. I wish we could do it for all pensioners now. A lot of pensioners stop me in the streets; they say all sorts of things to me, but they often say to me, \u2018Why can\u2019t we have this straight away?\u2019 Well, of course, there are some costs associated with the new single tier pension; some people are paying higher national insurance contributions to make it possible in the future, so it has to happen in the future. But I think it\u2019s a big reform.<\/p>\n

So my message is yes, there are lots of things we still need to sort out. We need to make sure the social care system is working properly for older people. We need to make sure our health service performs the very best care that it can for older people. But on some of the key issues about stability and security, responsibility and dignity for older people, I think we really are delivering some changes that I hope you\u2019ll welcome today. <\/p>\n

And, again, thank you very much for listening. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David Cameron spoke at Age UK in London yesterday, where he met members and staff and discussed issues that affected them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48792"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48792\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}