Trade union Unite tells of concerns about 2025 contract to administer civil service pension scheme
Retired firefighters who were responsible for tackling blazes on military bases have been unable to access their full pension due to “numerous” blunders by the outsourcing group Capita, it has emerged.
Capita won a £525m contract to run the Ministry of Defence’s fire and rescue service in 2019, renaming it the Defence Fire and Rescue Project (DFRP) after the privatisation.
Continue reading...Payments halted four times and left Eileen McGrath without income over Christmas
A retired teacher has had her pension payments stopped four times because her pension provider repeatedly refuses to accept that she is not dead.
Eileen McGrath, 85, was left without income over Christmas when Teachers’ Pensions, which administers payments on behalf of the UK government, wrongly matched her with a deceased stranger.
Continue reading...Financial pressures have led to postponement of 19% of divorces, involving 270,000 couples, Legal & General claims
The start of the new year is often boom time for divorce lawyers, but 2024 may be different as new research shows the cost of living crisis has delayed more than 270,000 couples from splitting.
Financial pressures delayed 19% of divorces, researchers at Legal & General found. The impact has been particularly pronounced since 2020, with income concerns, cost of living pressures and the price of divorce all cited as reasons to postpone the split.
Continue reading...Opinium poll for the Observer reveals the public is unimpressed with Jeremy Hunt’s attempt to woo them by trimming national insurance
Rishi Sunak has received no poll bounce after cutting taxes in last week’s autumn statement, according to the latest Opinium poll for the Observer.
Following a week in which the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, described a reduction in national insurance as “the biggest tax cut on work since the 1980s” Labour’s lead has increased to 16 percentage points over the Tories.
Continue reading...Amid less gloomy OBR forecasts the chancellor is expected to take first steps towards cutting personal taxes
Jeremy Hunt will announce 110 measures to boost Britain’s stagnant economy and bow to demands from anxious Tory MPs for tax cuts when he delivers his second autumn statement on Wednesday.
In one of the last set-piece economic events before the general election, the chancellor will pledge to “turbo charge” growth while taking the first steps to cut personal taxes after recent sharp increases.
Continue reading...Shortfalls fuelled by misconceptions and distrust of employers, as well as lack of spare income, figures show
A UK individual from a minority ethnic background typically has a pension pot less than half the size of that belonging to the average white British saver, data reveal.
The research from Legal & General’s investment arm claimed there was a sizeable “ethnicity pensions gap” in the UK that was being fuelled by “misconceptions” around pensions and a “significant distrust of employers”, as well as a lack of spare income.
Continue reading...Lord Frost, Brexit negotiator for former PM, tells House of Lords that government never wanted ‘unsatisfactory’ protocol to work
Rayner says Labour will update trade union laws to make them fit for the 21st century.
The laws affecting union reps and officials do not take into account technological advancements, she says.
First, we will update regulations to outlaw the use of predictive technologies for blacklisting and safeguard against singling out workers for mistreatment or the sack without any evidence of human interaction.
Second, we will act to end the loophole that allows employers to pass the dirty work down to third party contractors, so that any third party found to be carrying out blacklisting can legally be held to account.
The Tories pushed through the 2016 Trade Union Act, preventing fair bargaining and holding back living standards.
And this year they gave us the minimum service levels bill [the Strikes Act] …
Continue reading...PM says he will not speculate over policy as he grapples with how to fund tax cuts demanded by Tory MPs
Rishi Sunak has refused to commit to keeping the pensions triple lock in the next Conservative manifesto, as he grapples with how to fund tax cuts demanded by his own MPs.
The prime minister told reporters during the G20 summit in Delhi that the triple lock – which guarantees that pensions will rise by at least 2.5%, and by either inflation or earnings if they are higher – remains government policy.
Continue reading...Data shows 44% at risk of struggling to afford food and heating after leaving workplace
Close to half of individuals who identify as LGBTQ+ are heading for a retirement where they are at risk of struggling to afford such basics as food and heating, according to new UK data.
Looking across various measures including amounts saved and pension scheme membership, researchers concluded that members of the LGBTQ+ community were “far more likely than the general population” to struggle in retirement.
Continue reading...Falling life expectancy and fears of voter unhappiness thought to be behind rethink about increase to 68 late next decade
Ministers have reportedly delayed plans to bring forward a rise in the state pension age amid falling life expectancy in the UK.
The state pension age, which is currently 66, was due to rise to 68 after 2044 but reports earlier this year suggested ministers had planned to bring the increase forward to between 2037 and 2039.
Continue reading...Health secretary expected to announce a formal pay offer to key unions later today
Sinn Féin’s US fundraising arm has caused a row by calling for a referendum on Irish unity in adverts in the New York Times, Washington Post and other US publications.
The half-page ads were paid for by Friends of Sinn Féin and ran on Wednesday urging support for unity referendums in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. “It is time to agree on a date,” it said. “Let the people have their say.”
They’re ads from Irish American organisations whose view on reunification is well known and held for a very long time and they take out ads every year. So, the focus now needs to be on getting back to work [at Stormont].
Continue reading...Shadow chancellor says decision to axe lifetime allowance is ‘wrong priority at the wrong time for the wrong people’
The Labour party has vowed to reverse the chancellor’s £1bn budget pensions tax “gilded giveaway” for the wealthiest 1% if it wins the next general election, as Jeremy Hunt defended his decision to scrap the lifetime pensions allowance.
The shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, said Labour would seek to force a Commons vote next week on the decision, which critics argue will allow the wealthiest people to put a limitless amount into their pension pots, which can then be passed on to their heirs without paying inheritance tax.
Continue reading...IFS says budget pensions giveaway could open up loophole for avoidance of inheritance tax
Jeremy Hunt’s huge pensions giveaway for the wealthiest 1% may have no impact on increasing the number of people in work, while opening a loophole for avoidance of inheritance tax, a leading economic thinktank has warned.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies said the surprise measure in the chancellor’s budget “probably won’t play a big part, if any” in increasing the number of people in work.
Continue reading...Jeremy Hunt criticised for scrapping lifetime allowance and increasing annual contribution cap
The chancellor has been accused of unveiling a £4bn tax giveaway that will benefit the wealthiest people in the UK by dramatically increasing how much they can stash away in pensions while enjoying the full tax benefits.
Jeremy Hunt announced a major shake-up of the rules governing how much people can pay into their retirement pots, which will have no impact on the vast majority of the population but could lead to huge gains for the top few per cent of wealthy, older pension savers. Labour claimed it was a handout for “the richest 1%” and that someone with a £2m pension pot would pay up to £275,000 less in tax as a result.
Continue reading...Fabian Society also says Labour needs to be radical and introduce better provision for the lowest paid
Sir Keir Starmer should promise that a future Labour government would introduce a new workplace pension for self-employed workers and more generous retirement provision for the low paid, a leading left-of-centre thinktank has said.
Calling for the biggest shake-up of the pensions’ system in two decades, the Fabian Society said Labour needed to copy the radical approach of the Turner Commission two decades ago, which encouraged saving through opt-out schemes.
Increasing the minimum contributions for workplace auto-enrolment pensions to 12% of total earnings from the current 8%. This would be done by phasing in higher contributions from employers over time.
The introduction of new pension credits for carers, who are primarily women, to reduce the “gender pensions gap”
Changes to how people access pensions at retirement so that separate pensions are automatically consolidated into a single fund and then converted into new whole-of-retirement pension plans designed to increase with inflation.
Continue reading...Home secretary departs after sending an official document by personal email but uses resignation letter to criticise PM
Plans to create Great British Railways, a public sector body to oversee Britain’s railways, have been delayed, MPs have been told.
Anne-Marie Trevelyan, the transport secretary, told the Commons transport committee that the transport bill, which would have set up the new body, has been delayed because legislation to deal with the energy crisis is being prioritised. She said:
The challenges of things like the energy legislation we’ve got to bring in and various others has meant that we have lost the opportunity to have that [bill] in this third session.
What we are continuing to pitch for will be what I would call a narrow bill around the future of transport technologies, the legislation around things like e-scooters.
Continue reading...Below-inflation rise would save exchequer tenth of £40bn to be given out through tax cuts, says thinktank
If the government raises benefits in line with earnings rather than inflation next year, it would drastically cut the incomes of poorer working-age families, while saving less than a tenth of the cost of recent tax cuts, a leading economic thinktank has calculated.
Such a change, which would mean a significant real-terms cut given that wages are rising at 5.5% with inflation close to 10%, could see the effective income of some families reduced by up to £1,000 a year, the Resolution Foundation said.
Continue reading...Campaigner Feargal Sharkey says profiteering from firms that dump raw sewage into rivers an ‘obscenity’
The Environment Agency’s pension fund owns stakes in a string of British water firms – despite the watchdog calling for industry bosses to be jailed over shocking pollution levels, the Guardian can reveal.
An analysis of the Environment Agency Pension Fund’s investments shows it holds shares or bonds worth £28m in six of the largest water companies.
Continue reading...Sunak’s attempt to make a distinction between increases in pensions and wages fuels a sense of political favouritism
The government has got itself into a fine muddle on the triple lock pension guarantee, David Cameron’s gift-cum-bribe to older voters in 2010 that has ricocheted down the years. On the one hand, Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak argue that awarding inflation-matching pay rises to public sector workers would risk an “inflationary spiral” and so should be avoided. On the other, the chancellor maintains that lifting the state pension by 10% – the figure likely to be produced by the triple lock formula – wouldn’t create inflationary pressures.
The position makes no sense. Income increases, whether delivered via pension payments or pay packets, all contribute to aggregate demand and spending capacity. Sunak’s attempt to make a distinction – “pensions are not an input cost into the cost of producing goods and services we all consume so they don’t add to inflation in the same way,” he said – only fuelled the sense of naked political favouritism. Teachers, to alight on the next bargaining battleground, aren’t manufacturing soap suds either.
Continue reading...It can feel as if the generation gap is wider than ever – but not when people really talk. Here, four sixtysomethings offer advice to those in their teens and 20s
We live in an era in which, for the most part, the generations do not mix frequently. Grandparents are visited occasionally; young people seek the freedom of independent living as early as possible. On social media, intergenerational warfare is commonplace, as members of gen Z (those born between the mid-90s and the early 10s) criticise older people for hoarding wealth, while baby boomers bemoan the perceived sensitivity of the younger generation.
But what would happen if baby boomers gave the TikToking young adults of today an insight into their thinking – and threw some life advice into the bargain? To that end, we assembled a panel of baby boomers – Tayo Idowu, 64, a marketing director from London; Liz Richards, 68, a retired nurse from Derby; Paul Gibson, 63, an accountant from Arundel, West Sussex; and Maggie Tata, 65, a carer from London – to answer gen Z’s questions (even the tongue-in-cheek ones).
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