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Tories plot fresh annuities attack
Sunday Telegraph - 17 November
2002
THE CONSERVATIVE Party is planning a renewed attack in the House of Commons
on the rule compelling people to transfer all pension money into annuities
by the age of 75.
The plan centres on next week's ballot of backbench MPs to decide who
will win the right to present a Private Member's Bill during the current
parliamentary session.
David Willetts, shadow spokesman for work and pensions, said the party
would "try to persuade any Conservative MP drawn early in the ballot
to introduce a bill along these lines". The order in which Private
Members' Bills are presented to Parliament equates to the order in which
the MPs' names are drawn in the ballot. Last year, a similar Bill, backed
by David Curry, Conservative MP for Skipton & Ripon and supported
by both Tories and Liberal Democrats, got through its first two hearings
in the House of Commons, but failed after running out of Parliamentary
time.
Willetts said: "Neither the Government nor the Revenue has given
any indication that there will be any significant relaxation of annuity
rules in the forthcoming Green Paper on pensions.
"We think there is an important principle here. People should be
free to do what they like with their own money, provided they have first
bought sufficient protection to ensure they do not have to rely on state
benefits. It is not the job of the government to tell people how to spend
their pension savings."
The likely date for the publication of the much-delayed Green Paper is
still unknown. But most insiders now expect it to be published alongside
the pre-Budget report, due to be delivered by the chancellor on November
27.
An Inland Revenue report on the taxation of pensions, originally expected
to come out alongside the Pickering report on pensions back in July, is
now thought likely to appear on or around the same date.
Emma Simon
© Sunday Telegraph
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