On Thursday, Mhairi Black, the youngest MP in the House of Commons, will do her bit for intergenerational solidarity by opening a House of Commons debate on State Pension age changes. A long-simmering row over the impact on women born in the 1950s of a combination of State Pension Age equalisation…Read more…
Pension costs – inertia rules
One of the challenges in participating in the long-running debate about the level of costs and charges levied on pensions is the risk of getting all Rumsfeldian. If we do not know what charges and costs are being borne by scheme members and their impact on savers’ standards of living in…Read more…
Pensions round-up in #SpendingReview 2015
In contrast to recent budget speeches, which have included significant changes to pensions policy, the pensions announcements in this spending review do not herald any major new policy developments. However, the government has moved forwards on its pla…Read more…
The North/South divide in healthy old age
In 1979 pop singer Debbie Harry suggested her preferred life pattern was “Die Young, Stay Pretty”. Ms Harry, as part of the band Blondie, has blithely ignored her own advice and is pumping out records and touring more than three decades later. However, her focus on healthy life expectancy, rather…Read more…
Unions and investors unite to oust Sports Direct Chair at AGM
Ahead of next week’s Sports Direct company AGM, the company’s Chair Keith Hellawell is coming under increasing pressure from unions and minority shareholders
The post Unions and investors unite to oust Sports Direct Chair at AGM appeared first on ToUChstone blog.Read more…
Don’t you (forget about DB)
It is easy to overlook defined benefit (DB) pension schemes when so much of the talk in the pensions world is of cruises, conservatories and high-powered sports cars. But their central role in the retirement savings of millions of people and as a cruci…Read more…
“Shoulda, woulda, coulda”: yet more evidence suggests income beats choice in retirement
Beverley Knight is a woman well aware of the consequences of poor decision-making. “Now ‘Shoulda, woulda, coulda’ means I’m out of time, “Coz ‘Shoulda, woulda, coulda’, can’t change your mind.” Inexplicably, popular music tends to gives more attention to matters of the heart than it…Read more…
Annuity resales – at last someone in government has found the brake pedal
After a headlong rush into so-called pensions freedom, someone responsible for pensions policy in government appears to have found the brake pedal. Tucked away in the Budget announcements was the news that attempts to launch a secondary annuity market …Read more…
What is a bird-in-the-bush worth to pension savers?
It’s a hard sale to make. “See that bird in your hand? Well I am taking it away. But don’t worry – in 50 years time you will get two, actually make that one, pecking around over there in the bush.” This is the scenario the Treasury is effectively exploring with its…Read more…
A workplace savings strategy is a good idea – but tread carefully
New Pensions Minister Ros Altmann has caused a stir with the publication this week of her pre-Election musings about the possible desirability of extending workplace savings beyond pensions. This is a useful and important development because a strategy…Read more…
Frank Field steps in where ministers fear to go on pension changes
It is welcome that this morning the Financial Times is reporting (behind a paywall) that the Work and Pensions Committee, under its new chairman Frank Field, is to scrutinise so-called pensions freedom reform. The policy, which means savers in defined contribution pensions no longer have to buy an…Read more…
Survivor pensions: the legacy of inequality continues
For pensioner couples, the death of a partner can lead to financial worry as well as grief for the one left behind. For this reason, many defined benefit pension schemes continue to pay a proportion of the pension to the survivor. But thanks to a littl…Read more…
The case for an Independent Pensions Commission
This is my contribution to an NAPF publication on the need for an Independent Pensions Commission. I argue that this is not “taking the politics out of pensions” – an absurdly impossible task – but rather a chance to bring social partnership to another field of policy…Read more…
Pension governance committees stacked with industry insiders
When caught doing something you shouldn’t and given another chance, it is usually wise to reform your ways. However, it appears that large sections of the pensions industry are intent on ignoring this basic piece of common sense. Rules requiring independent governance committees to be established…Read more…
Does pensions “freedom” offer the right choices?
Today (almost*) anyone over 55 can get their hands on their pension and take it as cash. It is all about “freedom” and “choice”, we are told. Those of us who are sceptical of the policy are therefore immediately labelled as opponents of freedom. We are the snooty…Read more…
When a choice isn’t worth having
Margaret Thatcher’s now notorious Sermon on the Mound gave the notion of “choice” a central place in both public policy and Christian thinking. Nearly 30 years later, Thatcher’s heirs are elevating choice to the paramount principle of pensions policy-making. I have written…Read more…
Today’s pensions committee report and the need for speed
The wide-ranging report being published today by the Work and Pensions Commission provides both a pretty comprehensive to-do list for the next Pensions Minister and an important warning that urgency is required on many of these tasks. Among its proposa…Read more…
Should there be a NEST for your nest-egg?
It says much for the resilience of the sort of consensual approach facilitated by the Pensions Commission of a decade ago that even before the government’s rash and irresponsible pensions freedom reforms have been implemented, opinion is coalescing around the best ways to ameliorate their likely…Read more…
Pensions tax: the questions that need to be answered
Amid all the uncertainties about post-election pensions policy, thanks to the unknown impact of fringe parties, the vagaries of coalition negotiations and the uncertain fates of individual party spokespersons, one subject looks likely to be near the top of any administration’s agenda: reform of…Read more…
Is a new consensus emerging on how we pay pensions?
It is not often that someone from the TUC is invited to write a foreword for a pamphlet published by the Centre for Policy Studies – a think-tank whose website is headed by an approving quotation from Margaret Thatcher. But then it is something of a surprise – and to their credit…Read more…