DWP Error Costs Taxpayer 16 Times More Than ASW Pensions Compensation

11.54.19am GMT Fri 16th Mar 2007

Commenting on new figures from Ros Altman, former Government pensions adviser, on the real cost of compensating almost 1,000 ASW workers and over 100,000 others who have lost their pensions, Jenny Willott, Welsh Liberal Democrat MP for Cardiff Central, slammed the Government for scaremongering.

She said:

"The Department of Work and Pensions wastes £700 million a year in overpaid benefits and pensions. That's a massive 16 times more than it would cost to compensate ASW workers and over 100,000 others for their lost pensions.

"Over the next 5 years, it would cost just £45m a year to give people pensions justice. This is less than 1% of the Department's total budget which is a huge £120bn. And yet the Government tells us that it would be an unmanageable burden on the taxpayer to give people pensions justice.

"This is absolute rubbish. The Government is still deliberately trying scaremonger people out of sympathy for ASW workers and others who are still suffering from this whole sordid saga.

"The Government must accept the views of Parliament, the Ombudsman, the European Court of Justice and the High Court. This means making provision in the Pensions Bill, currently going through Parliament, to ensure that people are finally given the pensions justice they have deserved all along."