Downing Street Says » Pensions White Paper

» Thursday, May 25, 2006

Pensions White Paper

The PMOS explained that the Prime Minister had, in Cabinet and in his remarks to the press in the street, described the Pensions White Paper published today as a landmark process. It was about reaching a consensus that would last not just one generation but several generations. It was the result of an independent report that the government had commissioned. What it tried to do was address the very real challenges which the changes in the demographics of this country and every country had to face up to. The Prime Minister had also pointed out in Downing Street that we now had a real chance to reach a genuine consensus as a nation about how we met those challenges and he believed that was a very important moment.

Asked how long the Cabinet discussion lasted, the PMOS said, as they knew, John Hutton had led a detailed Cabinet discussion on pensions for an hour last week. Today was about marking the publication of the White Paper so it was more a summary of where we had got to in the process. The Prime Minister and John Hutton had underlined the significance of the moment.

Asked about alleged the Treasury caveat that it may not be 2012, the PMOS said that he did not want to get ahead of John Hutton’s statement to the House of Commons, but if people looked over the Prime Minister’s remarks this morning he had said two things. Firstly, that this process had been fully costed. This had been an independent report. The DWP had then carried out the hard work of costing those recommendations, these were then discussed with the Treasury and other interested parties about the test of affordability. The Prime Minister had said that we were confident that these proposals were affordable. Secondly, the Prime Minister had talked about the process, but it was best to take his words about that and 2012. He had indicated that he was confident that it could be done by 2012 but he also pointed out that it would be done within the lifetime of the next parliament so that was his guarantee.

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