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Peers to vote on pensions 'lifeboat'

A key vote on whether the government should compensate thousands of people whose pension schemes collapsed will be held in the House of Lords tonight.More than 125,000 people lost millions of pounds worth of retirement savings when their companies went bust between 1997 and 2005.The government intends to compensate affected people with 80 per cent of their expected basic pensions under the Financial Assistance Scheme (FAS).But campaigners want to receive comparable payouts of 90 per cent guaranteed under the more recent Pension Protection Fund (PPF).The plight of those people who lost their retirement savings has already been backed by the Financial Ombudsman, the high court and the European court of justice.Referring to Gordon Brown's impending elevation to No 10 and tonight's vote, shadow pensions secretary Philip Hammond said: "We are confident that the lords will back the life-boat fund package and put the pressure firmly back on the chancellor."This will be the first major test of Gordon Brown's premiership. Does the man who is raiding £5 billion a year from pension funds have the decency to back this proposal to help those whose pensions he has decimated?"Trust in the pensions system cannot be restored until a just and equitable solution is found for the 125,000 victims of pension scheme failure."Liberal Democrat pensions spokesman Lord Oakeshott added that the government's attitude towards the high court and ombudsman rulings had been "utterly contemptuous"."They just don't seem to accept that anyone apart from themselves has any right to rule," he told BBC Radio Five Live's Wake Up to Money programme."It's as if they were playing a game, the referee has shown them the red card, and they just refuse to walk off the pitch."

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