Six MPs have backed a campaign calling for all retirees, no matter when they retired, to be able to benefit from the pension freedoms.

Called Your Pension, Your Choice, the campaign has been funded by DRB Pension Assistance, which is part of the US company DRB Capital. DRB Capital specialises in buying annuities in America and converting them into cash.

The campaign claims that five million retirees who retired before April 2015 are unfairly trapped as they were not given the ability to benefit from the pension freedoms. In the last parliament, the government agreed to extend freedoms to this cohort, but then changed its plans. According to the campaign ministers have no plans to review this decision.

The six MPs — Paul Masterton MP, East Renfrewshire, Conservative; Stephen Lloyd MP, Eastbourne, Liberal Democrat; Craig Mackinlay MP, South Thanet, Conservative; Sir Peter Bottomley MP, Worthing West, Conservative; Ruth George MP, High Peak, Labour; and Sir David Crausby MP, Bolton North East, Labour — have launched an early day motion in parliament to reverse the decision.

To mark the start of the campaign, a Change petition has been launched to gather public support.

One of the MPs, Paul Masterton, said: “Freedom and choice was a revolutionary pension policy which allowed individuals greater flexibility to tailor how they received retirement income to better fit their circumstances.

“But because the government has backtracked on a promise to extend that ability to individuals who retired before the changes came into place, more than five million people are losing out on the ability to access their pension pots in the way they please.

“Many of them are now stuck with very small, poor value annuities which aren’t their main retirement income and provide no meaningful benefit.

I welcome the launch of this new campaign and look forward to working with them to make the case to government for this vital change.”

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