Coulter says PM is Pensions Scrooge
Rev Dr Robert Coulter MLA, the Ulster Unionist North Antrim Assemblyman, has called on the Prime Minister to lift his ban on a Government £725 million bail-out plan for pensioners who lost out when their employers went bust.
“It is widely known that Work and Pensions Secretary Peter Hain has set this money aside in his departmental budget to pay for this bail-out plan. Blocking a scheme which the relevant Minister has already planned to fund, is a Scrooge-like thing to do in the mouth of Christmas. It only goes to confirm the Prime Minister’s reputation as what the Americans call a tight-wad.”
“Apparently work on this project is well advanced with both a £725 million package and a scaled-down £350 million package under consideration. It is terrible that the Prime Minister should pull the plug on this at this late stage. It sends out a terrible message to pensioners who were unfortunate enough to find themselves in this position through no fault of their own. It will be a pretty miserable Christmas for many of them.”
“The tight fistedness of the Prime Minister is legendary. It is also very short-sighted. His meanness is also hampering the work of our own Ministers in the Executive who have been denied the peace package on a scale they might reasonably have expected after the remarkable achievement of making peace in Northern Ireland. It takes no account of the disgraceful under-investment in our infrastructure by direct rule Ministers over thirty five years and in the way European Union funds were retained at Westminster.”