Pensioners hit out at Darling over top-up call rejection

THE Chancellor has come under fire from pensioners after rejecting calls to include top-up payments in next month's state pension increase, writes Jeff Salway.

The basic state pension will rise by 2.5 per cent from 6 April, with those due the full amount to get a maximum weekly payment of 95.75, plus pension credits to which they are entitled.

The rise in the basic payment traditionally includes state pension top-ups such as deferred pensions, Serps, state second pensions and graduated pensions.

The news, however, that for the first time ever the state pension increase would not be applied to those top-up payments was buried in the small print of December's pre-Budget report, with most of those affected only informed of the move in recent weeks.

Despite lobbying ahead of the Budget by groups including the National Pensioners Convention the government refused to back down.

As a result, an estimated ten million pensioners will get a smaller increase in state pension payments than they would otherwise have expected.

Among them is Edinburgh pensioner Ken Campbell, who retired in 2001 after selling his construction business. Ken will not be significantly affected as he also has a private pension, but contacted The Scotsman to express his anger at the move.

"In previous years the annual increase has also applied to my Serps and graduated pension so in effect my state pension has only increased by a little over 1 per cent," Ken pointed out. "It is really annoying when I hear MPs talking about a 2.5 per cent increase in state pensions and the winter fuel allowance and implying that all pensioners receive this when it is not true. I live in an area where 70 per cent of people are pensioners and it will hit some hard, especially those on frozen incomes when everything is going up in price."

Lindsay Scott, communications manager at Age Concern and Help the Aged in Scotland, said: "We lobbied actively to reverse it and people are more angry than disappointed that he did not do anything, but we didn't expect anything in the Budget. The government logic is perhaps that those people on top-ups are not the poorest pensioners."

Scott added that while the extension of the winter fuel payment was welcome, he was disappointed that it will continue to be a flat payment that does not take regional temperature variations into account. "From the Scottish perspective it is slightly discriminatory," said Scott.