Darling’s budget did not do enough to get Britain saving again. ABI research has shown that the public has lost confidence in saving since the start of the economic crisis. Four in ten people in the UK are either saving too little, or nothing at all into a pension and Darling’s budget did nothing to reverse this. We are very disappointed that we did not see any incentives for pension saving.

The UK’s failure to save means that more and more people will come to rely on the state pension in years to come. Not only does this mean that a shocking percentage of pensioners will be living in poverty, but also the UK’s economy will be weakened even further by too much individual debt and too little personal saving.

Increasing the amount that can be put into ISA’s annually and freezing capital gains tax are both policies that make sense. However, they will not have a significant impact on how much people save. What we really need to do is encourage those who are not already saving, to start. To get these people to save, the Government need to make pension schemes simpler, encouraging employers and employees to understand and take part in a pension plan.

Tags: abi, association of british insurers, financial advisers, money, saving