By Iain Anderson, Director of Cicero Consulting.
It's gone... I just can’t believe it's gone.
Many people will be asking themselves that question after today’s Budget about a whole number of things.
But for me this marks the end of a long and hard fought campaign to scrap the compulsion to buy a pension annuity at age 75.
Tucked away in the section of the Budget Statement around pensions tax relief is the commitment from the Coalition to end compulsion, following a consultation this summer, from April 2011.
For over ten years I have worked with my friends Dr Oonagh McDonald and Sir Nicholas Goodison to campaign for the right of people to make their own choice of retirement income needs. A free choice as long as people meet an minimum income which ensures they do not fall back on the State.
We took five Private Members Bills through the House of Commons. We spoke to every Secretary of State and every Pensions Minister along the way – and in the past 10 years there have been quite a number.
We secured backing from the then Equal Opportunities Commission and both the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties to have this commitment in their last two manifestos.
But until I saw this commitment in print from HM Treasury today in the official Budget book, I scarcely believed it would happen.
Given the Chancellor’s removal of the planned tax on cider – I might just have a glass or two of scrumpy to celebrate.
