01 October 2007
Conservative shadow work and pensions secretary Chris Grayling
is to promise that individuals who lost their pensions when their
employers went bust will be compensated within three months of a
Conservative government taking office. The Conservative's plan to
establish a £30m a year "lifeboat fund" to help those
suffering after their employer's schemes collapsed. Mr Grayling
will say at today's conference in Blackpool: "We have a battle to
fight for all the pensioners who have lost out under Gordon
Brown... what he has done to our pensions system is nothing short
of criminal. I've met many of Gordon's pensions victims. Can you
imagine working for 40 years, saving for 40 years, looking forward
to retirement? Then, suddenly one day, without warning, your dreams
and future are shattered."
Dr Ros Altmann, a pensions expert who has represented the
disillusioned pensioners, said: "It is enormously welcome that the
Tories have committed themselves to righting the dreadful wrong
that has been done to tens of thousands of people. It must be done
swiftly before more people become seriously ill or die while living
without the rightful pensions that they worked so hard for. Labour
said it would set up a scheme to help people who needed it most
urgently. Three years down the line the vast majority have not been
paid a penny."
