Government undecided on pensions case appeal

Work & Pensions Secretary John Hutton told members of Parliament on Thursday that the government will pay the legal costs so far accrued of the four men who brought action against the government in the pensions case that resulted in the High Court admonishing the government for providing misleading and inaccurate information about how secure pensions schemes are. The men claimed that reliance on that information led to the loss of their pensions when the schemes they were subscribed to failed. The government will also pay the costs of the men’s appeal.

However, Mr. Hutton also said that the government has not yet decided whether to appeal the portion of the ruling, handed down Wednesday, that ordered the government to reexamine its attitude that it was not responsible for the losses incurred by some of the thousands of individuals who relied on the information it published about pension schemes. The court did not say that the government was responsible for all losses by all individuals whose pensions were lost in scheme failures.

In speaking to members of Parliament, Mr. Hutton said that the government sympathized with those who had lost pensions, but that it had acted in good faith when it published information on the security of pension schemes. He also said that the government is looking at the levels of assistance currently offered by the Financial Assistance Scheme, which it was ordered to do by the European Court of Justice in an earlier ruling that sent the issue of payments back to the High Court and resulted in Wednesday’s ruling.

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