Nigel Stanley
I have a new post on Huffington Post UK today on some of the background to yesterday’s Congress debates on public sector pensions: The government is attacking union members’ pensions
Nigel Stanley's Archive — Page 3
Nigel Stanley
I’m the TUC’s Head of Campaigns and Communications, and have been working at the TUC since 1994. I manage campaigning, media relations, parliamentary lobbying, publications and event organisation. As I work in communications and public affairs, my blogging is likely to range widely, but superficially.
If I have a specialist subject, it’s pensions. I have led a lot of the TUC’s work on implementing the Pensions Commission proposals. I have been a Trustee Member of the Nest Corporation.
In the past, I’ve freelanced in public affairs, research and journalism, including with the European Commission, Labour Party and a number of MPs. I did research, press and campaign management at the House of Commons in the 80’s and early 90’s, first for Robin Cook and then for Bryan Gould. Before that I was Organising Secretary of the Labour Co-ordinating Committee from its launch in 1978. I play ska/jazz bass guitar with the Skamonics and have part-ownership of a canal boat.
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Nigel Stanley
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Nigel Stanley
Right-wing think tank Civitas has what looks like a very interesting report out today – interesting because it comes from the right. If the press release is accurate it is a devastating attack on the private pensions industry and a call for the state to be more active. In other words the kind of thing I might write, although I’d probably do it somewhat more politely.
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Nigel Stanley
Steve Webb is today hinting that the government will introduce a further increase in the state pension age to 67 by 2026. This may provide slightly more notice than the government has given to women, but is not likely to be very popular.
Steve Webb’s dilemma is that he undoubtedly wants people to have decent pensions when they retire, but the Treasury will not give him any extra money. Reducing the number of people eligible for a state pension allows a higher pension to be paid to them at the same cost to the Treasury.
But increasing the state pension age does not extend anyone’s working life. If it meant everyone had a chance to carry on working in a decent job they liked for another year, it would be an easier message to sell.
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Nigel Stanley
Most Touchstone readers will wince every time they hear a minister talking about ‘maxing out the nation’s credit card’. Those of us old enough to remember can hear the direct echoes of Mrs Thatcher’s housewife’s purse, which she used to justify what in retrospect look like quite mild cuts in spending.
Yet this simple narrative has worked for the government. A majority still believe cuts are necessary (even if they want them to be temporary and reject the small state ideology that drives a good part of the cuts/public service “reform” agenda).
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Nigel Stanley
US academic Lane Kenworthy gets a lot into this post. Is there a viable progressive politics that doesn’t hinge on a strong labor movement? (hat tip Chris Dillow)
And Chris Dillow in his own post points out just how cheap it is for the UK government to borrow. As he says:
The average yield on index-linked gilts with a maturity of over five years is below 0.4%. When borrowing is so cheap, doesn’t it make sense to do more of it?
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Nigel Stanley
Someone has now sent me some more of the leaked Andrew Lansley letter on pensions that I dissected on Monday. Thank you. You know who you are, even if I don’t.
It’s even more interesting than the original leaks suggest!
We also now know that it was written in late May. So to be fair I should note that the government’s position has shifted a little since then, but not by a huge amount or in ways that deal with the points raised in the letter.
So here’s a bit more from it with some further analysis.
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Nigel Stanley
Many of the headlines generated by the Office for Budget Responsibility’s recent fiscal sustainability report concentrated on the challenges of the demographic “timebomb” – the fact that we are living longer. There will be undoubtedly be extra costs, but there is no need to give in to right wing calls to slash spending.
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Nigel Stanley
The full text of Andrew Lansley’s leaked letter to Danny Alexander on public service pensions does not seem to be available anywhere (at least yet).
But the Daily Telegraph has published enough to show that this was a well-argued and comprehensive critique. It ran to five pages.
While he claims that he is writing on behalf of health workers, most of his arguments apply equally to other schemes – though as the health scheme (like the local government scheme) collects more in contributions than it pays out in current pensions he may feel that his arguments are particularly strong.
Much of what he says is common to the union critique of the government’s plans. We do not know the precise date that this letter was written, though it was clearly some months ago. The Department of Health has tried to say that things have moved on since the letter was written. But while there have been some modest changes in the government’s position, they certainly don’t meet the objections that have been revealed so far.
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Nigel Stanley
Two weeks ago on consecutive mornings on the BBC’s Today programme government ministers were unable to argue that public service pensions were unaffordable and unsustainable.
This is because they had no answer to the projections accepted by the National Audit Office, the Office for Budget Responsibility and John Hutton’s report that the share of GDP taken by gross public service pension payments is due to fall from 1.9% to 1.4%.
Today they have tried to fight back by spinning new projections of the costs of pension liabilities in today’s Whole of Government Accounts (WGA). But the Office for Budget Responsibility’s new report shows that this spin is highly misleading.
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Nigel Stanley
The government has been unable to win the argument that the cost of public sector pensions is unsustainable. Right wing critics of public sector pensions have therefore changed their tune and now stress their argument that poorly paid and ill-pensioned private sector workers should not have to pay for public sector pensions.
This, of course, is just another call for levelling down. With two out of three private sector workers now getting no employer help building up a pension, the only way to make the two sectors fair would be to remove two-thirds of public sector workers from any pensions coverage. And if you take this argument to its logical conclusion you end up in the absurd position that low paid private sector workers should make no contribution to paying the wages of public sector workers with a higher income. Given that the public sector has higher median pay as it tends to employ workers with high skills and professional qualifications – all those teachers and doctors – this ends up being most of the public sector.
But there is a glaring unfairness that many critics of public sector pensions (though to be fair not all) fail to acknowledge. This is the £39 billion cost of pensions tax relief – most of which goes to the better off.
