Brown fails to support pension cost claims - papers 31st March

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THE CHANCELLOR yesterday refused to support claims by Tony Blair and John Hutton, the Work and Pensions Secretary, suggesting it would cost £15bn to compensate workers deprived of their pensions, reports The Times .

According to the paper, when he was questioned on the figure at a Commons Treasury Select Committee meeting, Gordon Brown side-stepped demands to clarify whether the costing was backed by the Treasury. The £15bn cost to taxpayers has been used repeatedly by the Prime Minister, Hutton and Stephen Timms, the Pensions Reform Minister, to justify the government’s refusal to compensate an estimated 85,000 people who lost their retirement savings when their employers when bust with a deficit in their final-salary pension schemes. The Parliamentary Ombudsman this month ordered the government...

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