IoD welcomes universal pension proposals

Dated: 25 October 2010

The IoD today welcomed the proposed provision of a universal basic state pension at the current Pension Credit level, with means testing to be abolished. Malcolm Small, Senior Adviser, said:

“The current arcanely complex state retirement benefit architecture has long been due for improvement, and a universal, decent, basic state pension is something we’ve long argued for. The devil will be in the detail, of course, but the direction of travel is clear.

“The current system of means-tested retirement benefits acts as a disincentive to save in a pension for modest earners and this reform will be essential before auto-enrolment into pension saving begins from 2012. Furthermore, if people are clearer about what they will get from the state in retirement, they have the clearest possible incentive to save beyond that level if they want a better retirement than the state alone will provide.

He added:

“For low earners, the basic state pension will provide a better income replacement rate than it does today. This is, on the face of it, the best news in pensions I have seen in the last 5 years.”

ENDS

Contact Points

Edwin Morgan
Media Relations Manager
Institute of Directors, 116 Pall Mall, London SW1Y 5ED
Tel: +44 (0)20 7451 3392
Mob: +44 (0)7814 386 243
Email: edwin.morgan@iod.com
Website: www.iod.com/policy

Notes to editors

  • The IoD (Institute of Directors) was founded in 1903 and obtained a Royal Charter in 1906. The IoD is a non-party political organisation with upwards of 45,000 members in the United Kingdom and overseas. Membership includes directors from right across the business spectrum – from media to manufacturing, e-business to the public and voluntary sectors. Members include CEOs of large corporations as well as entrepreneurial directors of start-up companies.
  • The IoD offers a wide range of business services which include business centre facilities (including ten UK regional centres [three in London, Reading, Birmingham, Cardiff, Manchester, Nottingham, Edinburgh and Belfast] and one each in Paris and Brussels), conferences, networking events, virtual offices and hotdesking, issues-led guides and literature, as well as free access to business information and advisory services and a comprehensive Information Centre. The IoD places great emphasis on director development and has established a certified qualification for directors – Chartered Director – as well as running specific board-level and director-level training and individual career mentoring programmes.
  • In addition, the IoD provides an effective voice to represent the interests of its members to government and key opinion-formers at the highest levels. These include ministers, constituency MPs, Select Committee members and senior civil servants. IoD policies and views are actively promoted to the national, regional and trade media.
  • For further information, visit our website: www.iod.com
  • You can also keep up to date with the latest views from the IoD on twitter.com/The_IoD and at blogs.iod.com