Labour conference: O’Brien attacks "wild claims" about personal account losers
Online Business Add comments
Speaking at a fringe event at the Labour conference in Manchester yesterday, O’Brien said stakeholders are currently examining issues such as the conflict between means-testing and personal accounts and are likely to report back in December.
However, he said it is not the Government’s intention to provide a recommended policy solution, but rather to lay out possible solutions and have a debate.
He said: “The aim is to examine issues around suitability and the extent of people that might lose because there have been all sorts of wild claims, some of them I think when put under the microscope will be seen to be not very strong ones.”
But O’Brien conceeded some people would be worse off on personal accounts than if they relied on means-tested benefits, although he said this is a problem shared by existing private schemes as well.
He said that possible policy solutions to the problem might include increasing trivial commutation or making the rules around benefits more generous, but said that any solution would come at a cost for the Government.
