Brown and Blair fall out over pension reform
Brown drops plans to announce pension overhaul in Budget after row with prime minister
Chancellor Gordon Brown and prime minister Tony Blair are said to be at odds
over pension reform forcing Brown to avoid plans to outline his ideas in today’s
Budget.
John Hutton, the work and pensions secretary, agrees with Blair that a
modified version of the proposals from the Lord Turner review are the way
forward. They both believe a bigger state pension indexed to earnings, financed
by a higher retirement age and raised taxes will solve the so-called pensions
timebomb.
But Brown wants to ignore the Turner proposals and instead go for a 3 per
cent annual rise in the basic state pension until 2020, which would fall short
of restoring the link to earnings, the Financial Times reports.
A row behind the scenes died down once Brown agreed not to include any
pensions announcements in his tenth Budget, although the Treasury denied this
saying there was never any intention for him to say anything on pension reform.