Save Our Pension Book Campaign

Steve Webb and Lib Dem MPs deliver the "Save Our Pension Book" petition to 10 Downing Street

December 2003

I have delivered a petition of 12,000 signatures to Downing Street in support of the "Save the Pension Book" campaign.  In early December 2003 I took a group of Liberal Democrat MPs and candidates to the door of Number 10 with boxes of signatures collected from across the whole country.  Our aim was to demonstrate the strength of support for the campaign across Britain.

Click here to read the press release from this event

What is the campaign about?

I launched the campaign early in 2003 to protect the rights of 7,000 local pensioners to have their pensions paid through a pension book at their local post office. It was launched first in South Gloucestershire and then rolled out nationally by Liberal Democrat campaigners across Britain.

We are challenging Government plans to force pensioners to have their pensions paid into a bank account or a post office account operated by plastic card and PIN number. Over the next year, every pensioner who does not currently have their pension paid into a bank account will get a letter from the Department of Work and Pensions telling them that their pension book is to be scrapped.

In the future they will be told to have their money paid into an existing regular bank account, a new “basic” bank account with limited features, or a new “Post Office Card Account”.

Where pensioners have their money paid into a regular bank current account, many will find that they cannot access their cash at a Post Office. Only a limited number of banks have arrangements with the Post Office to allow cash to be withdrawn from regular current accounts.

What can be done?

I am encouraging pensioners not to supply bank details, but instead to write back to the DWP saying that they want to keep their pension books.

Steve talking to Alveston postmistress Ann Turner about the campaign
 

More than 7,000 pensioners in Northavon choose to receive their pensions through a pension book at a local post office. All of them were offered the chance of payment into a bank account when they retired, and all decided that they preferred to have a pension book. The Government should now respect that choice and not force people to give up their pension book. Once people give their bank details they will lose their right to have a pension book, and post offices will probably lose a lot of valuable custom.

I have spoken to local subpostmasters who are very worried about the effects of the changes. They fear that if pensioners have their pensions paid into bank accounts they will be less likely to visit post offices and this could sound the death knell for some struggling offices. They have welcomed the campaign.

Click here for more detail about how post offices may be affected