Pension changes in 2016

From April 2016, there will be only a single-tier pension. This will be a flat rate paid at £155.65 a week. This replaces the current, lower basic state pension of £115.95, but it also replaces secondary and additional pensions which would normally enable people to top up the basic rate.

An analysis by leading actuarial firm Hymans Robertson found that most people would lose out under the new regulations. Over 20 million workers are likely to be more than £1000 a year worse off under the new deal, and people who transferred some of their savings into private schemes for brief periods in the 1980s and 90s stand to lose as much as £20,000 in total. 

Though she criticised this assessment as "scaremongering", Ros Altmann, Minister of State at the Department for Work and Pensions, admitted that even the government projected that 25% of people would be worse off under the new pension scheme.