30th November 2005

Greens welcome the 450-page report which has been three years in the writing and if adopted will lead to cuts in pensioner poverty.

Philip Booth, a spokesperson for the Gloucestershire Green party said: "We urge the Government to give a positive response to calls for a universal citizens pension and the link to earnings. We do need to raise the effective retirement age. This means tackling age discrimination, improving working conditions, not penalising people for breaks in their working life and solving negative effects on the level of occupational pensions if people want to reduce working hours."

Philip Booth added: “The existing pension should be replaced by a Citizen’s Pension, a basic, weekly pension guaranteed for all, free from means testing and rising in line with average earnings. Such a pension would abolish abject pensioner poverty and recognise the real, but unpaid, contribution that millions of women have made to society when they have worked in the home rather than in the workplace."

Philip Booth concluded: "We also need major institutional change in the pensions industry and it needs Government action to get that change underway so that people have a real opportunity to invest voluntary pensions savings in the new green economy of tomorrow."