Pension Funds
Brooks Newmark challenges the Government over the Chancellor's tax raid which has cost pensioners between £100 billion and £150 billion.
Mr. Brooks Newmark (Braintree) (Con): Our estimates of the cost to pensioners of the Chancellor's tax raid range between £100 billion and £150 billion. What analysis has the Economic Secretary done of the cost to pensioners?
Ed Balls: The fact is that those figures are nonsense. As I said, the assets of pension funds have gone up, rather than down. The number of pensioners in poverty has not gone up; it has gone down by 2.1 million. The Government made decisions in 1997 to make the Bank of England independent, to introduce fiscal rules, to have a windfall tax on the privatised utilities and to make tax changes-all of which have delivered stability in our economy and all of which were opposed by Opposition Members. Government is about making tough decisions; we did that and they opposed them.
