Paperwork released with the Budget has revealed what an astonishing short-term money spinner so-called “pensions freedom” has been for the Treasury – and hinted at what a disaster it might prove for our ability to provide for old age. Originally announced in Budget 2014, pensions freedom allows those savers with defined contribution pensions to withdraw…
On a day when official statistics revealed another welcome hike in the number of people saving in pensions, the government has just made it harder for savers when they reach retirement. Now, 68 per cent of employees are in a workplace pension scheme. This number is still insufficient and it is clear that part-timers and…
Pensions can be a complex subject. So it is tempting to make the subject into a series of straightforward binary choices. The latest effort in this direction is the publication of research from the Institute for Fiscal Studies for the Work and Pensions Select Committee. This places the public policy choice as the population ages, as…
Government plans to bail on a pension promise to 11,000 nuclear decommissioning workers could end up establishing a dangerous precedent for pensions that many more of us rely on. There are many different ways of looking at the pension scheme your employer provides for you and your colleagues. At its heart it is a promise…
If dogs resemble their owners, do government documents resemble their Ministers? Since entering office less than a year ago Pensions Minister Richard Harrington has appeared to be non-dogmatic, willing to engage with a wide range of voices and generally distrusting of pensions jargon. His speech to the TUC Pensions Conference was much about his willingness…
The subject of Collective Defined Contribution (CDC) pensions got an unexpected airing at the TUC Pensions Conference last week. The topic was not even on the conference agenda. For, after losing its most high profile backer in former Pensions Minister Steve Webb with the end of the Coalition Government, official policy work on the issue has…
If you mingled among the delegates at the TUC Pensions Conference last week, then you would be sure to hear people chatting about one of the presentations: the barnstorming contribution of Baroness Hollis on women and pensions. The Labour peer gave a robust denunciation of how the pensions system works for women. “Pensions were designed…
The coming year has the potential to see yet another overhaul of pensions saving. Virtually every aspect of the pensions system will come under scrutiny in the coming 12 months But through it all, it is vital that the focus is kept on the overriding policy priority: allowing people a sufficient income in retirement for…
If it wasn’t for companies meeting their obligations to fund defined benefit (DB) pension schemes, average wages would be £1,473 higher, claimed a think tank this morning. It is a compelling argument for many coming after a prolonged period of stagnant wage growth. It is also reminiscent of the sort of thing seen on the…
One of the myths about the State Pension triple lock is that it is somehow a subsidy of the wealthy old by the impecunious young. A report released this afternoon by the studiously neutral, Pensions Policy Institute shows two key things: The triple lock has done the vast bulk of the work in improving pensioner…