Labour is calling for tax relief for higher rate taxpayers to be capped reports Ceri Jones financial journalist
Labour leader Ed Miliband, in a speech at Eastpoint in Southampton in April where he was campaigning for control of the city council, called for pension relief for higher rate tax payers to be capped at 26%, with the extra revenue used to fund reverse cuts in tax credits set out in the Budget....
The public sector has failed to grasp Lord Hutton’s pension proposals explains Ceri Jones, financial journalist
Hymans Robertson researched public sector workers in May and discovered that three quarters do not understand how Lord Hutton’s recommendations for public sector pensions will affect them. For example, 10% think that they will lose what they have earned in their pension so far, although in...
The Work and Pensions Select Committee is conducting an inquiry into auto-enrolment and Nest.
Short submissions (no more than 3,000 words) are invited from interested organisations and individuals.
The deadline for written evidence is Friday 26 August 2011.
Submissions...
Ceri Jones profiles Rachel Reeves, Shadow Minister for Work and Pensions and champion of the fair treatment of women in raising the state pension age
Labour’s rising star Rachel Reeves has been catapulted into the pension arena at a timely moment for thousands of women. She became Shadow Minister for Work and Pensions in October, just as Chancellor George Osborne announced the Coalition’s proposals to speed up the timetable for the...
The Mayor of London's solution to the problem of our ageing population is another baby boom reports Ceri Jones, financial journalist
Amid all the brouhaha about the Pensions Regulator’s investigation of London Mayor Boris Johnson’s decision to put Visit London, formerly known as London Tourist Board, into administration, which resulted in it shuffling off its pension liabilities, it is worth recalling the column...
The Coalition may be consultation-happy but the voices of protest are becoming louder reports Ceri Jones, financial journalist
The Coalition has issued a 25-page consultation on the use of the Consumer Prices Index (CPI), in place of the existing Retail Prices Index (RPI) link, for increases to private sector final salary scheme benefits.
The consultation, which closes on 2 March, will consider whether schemes can...
Ceri Jones, financial journalist, reports on another coalition – this time of pensioner groups – as lobbying forms around the switch from RPI to CPI
Opposition is building against the government’s plans to erode inflation protection in final salary pensions from next April as the implications of switching from using the Retail Prices Index (RPI) as the index for inflation protection to the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) has become more...
Ceri Jones, financial journalist, on the new recruits to the Shadow Cabinet pensions posts
At least Ed Miliband has got one thing straight – he has used the reshuffle to put some brains into the Shadow pension posts.
Rachel Reeves, the new Shadow Pensions Minister, is a career economist, having done spells at the Bank of England, the British Embassy in Washington and at Halifax...
The Hutton report gives impetus to CPI opposition reports Ceri Jones, financial journalist
While there were no surprises in the first Hutton report on public sector pensions, Mr Hutton’s reiteration that accrued rights should be protected is serving to intensify the debate about the government’s Budget proposal to move to Consumer Prices Index (CPI) indexation. What...
The government is fighting accusations of discrimination and unfairness on several fronts reports Ceri Jones, financial journalist
The Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP’s) decision to end transfers from contracted out defined benefit (DB) schemes to defined contribution (DC) schemes from April 2012 has created a furore and is widely seen as the latest in the industry’s horrible history of unintended...
It should be illegal for MPs to vote for regulation they do not understand suggests Robin Ellison, Pinsent Masons
Portia was wearing those secretarial, geek glasses, like Superman or Chris Evans. It was the first time she had shown signs of any kind of weakness. “I’ve been reading quite a lot recently” she said defensively. “Just look at the volume of stuff that has been emerging...
Andrew Hoddinott, PricewaterhouseCoopers, finds more implications for UK pension schemes than expected in a Green Book on the Obama Administration’s fiscal plans
Father Christmas has probably not stocked up with quite as many copies of the appealingly titled US publication General Explanations of the Administration’s Fiscal Year 2010 Revenue Proposals, as he has Dan Brown’s latest offering. However, if you are starting the New Year with a...
Pension problems are mounting. Editor Stephanie Hawthorne sets the priorities for the next government
Within six months there will be a general election. Sandwiched between the enormous national debt of £100bn and high unemployment, the pensions plight of millions will struggle to get the attention of whichever government is in power, but a new Secretary of State for Work and Pensions will...
With a general election in 2010, will it be another turbulent year for pensions? Stephanie Hawthorne asks the great and the good for their predictions
Domino effect
John Ball head of defined benefits consulting at Watson Wyatt.
This time last year I was predicting we would see a significant acceleration in closure to future accrual in DB schemes. I am not sure that I am pleased to have been proved right, but this trend certainly...
The destruction of the nation’s private pension system is the biggest single indictment of this government argues Anthony Hilton, Evening Standard
As election fever picks up across the country, the parties lob insults at each other on all manner of trivial and petty things, but pensions just do not get mentioned.
No one expects pensions to be an election issue, but imagine what the debate would be like if Gordon Brown had done to house...
If previous elections are anything to go by, there is every prospect pensions will once again not hit the political radar in the 2010 election.
But Robin Ellison, one of the most experienced and knowledgeable pension experts and leader of the new U Party, is set to change that. The principal...
Tony Bacon, Lane Clark & Peacock, assesses the possible fallout from the Minister’s statement on guaranteed minimum pension inequality problems
Those like me old enough to remember the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruling in the Barber case on 17 May 1990 knew at the time that it had big implications for pension schemes. However, even the most pessimistic pension commentators may not have anticipated such extensive reverberations some...
What’s in store for pensions from a new Government
May was a golden month for the Westminster Press Pack. Front pages were regularly ‘held’ as the negotiations between the major parties took yet another new twist, and political correspondents rushed to write up their copy.
Never mind the front pages, political news has dominated...
With the right message and the right action, decent pensions are affordable urges Keith Barton, ACA
Last month, my organisation, the Association of Consulting Actuaries (ACA) launched a six-point Retirement Income Manifesto, with a view to persuading the political parties ahead of the general election to “buy into” measures that will reinvigorate private sector retirement savings...
How Robin Ellison, Pinsent Masons, became hooked on playing the political game
Politics is like drugs: it makes you rather weird and causes you to talk interminably, mostly fairly pointlessly. In the last few weeks I have spent some time with the political druggies and found them fiercely tribal, astonishingly well informed about every subject under the sun, very charming...
