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Some Steel Pensions Could Be Largely Frozen, Steve Webb Says

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mikey4444 | 07:23 Sat 04th Jun 2016 | News
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Pension arrangements should never be changed (except with the consent of all concerned). Folk have relied on them to provide for the future. It's not like a saving fund for a rainy day, it's insurance of an adequate income when, having done your bit for society, you need to pass responsibility on to the younger generation. When companies have screwed up there...
07:42 Sat 04th Jun 2016
Pension arrangements should never be changed (except with the consent of all concerned). Folk have relied on them to provide for the future. It's not like a saving fund for a rainy day, it's insurance of an adequate income when, having done your bit for society, you need to pass responsibility on to the younger generation. When companies have screwed up there needs to have been compulsory insurance to cover, or else all involved need to find the finance. The company has a responsibility, the government may need to help in extreme circumstances.
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BA for you OG, without any further delay !
What would you like to see happen, mikey?
It's 'pie in the sky' to say pensions should never be changed. The fact of the matter is they are being changed. Should the government pay 100% of every failed pension scheme?
The proposals for the British Steel pension fund are actually illegal at the moment. A major problem is that you can't just change the law for this one case, once done it will affect every private pension plan meaning all people with a works/private pension will lose out. How many people realize this?
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Too right Eddie. If this becomes legal, and everyone of us could potentially lose out in the future.
The fact that they are being changed is exactly what is wrong.

Contracts should not be so easy to get out of. It seems to be a case of one side taking money and then saying they can't afford to pay as agreed so get off, whilst the other side pay in and are then told, "Tough, you are the ones who have to suffer as a result of our incompetence." This is totally one sided and a disaster.

Wherever possible the commercial concerns involved should be made to cover. Where this isn't feasible then of course the public should cover the promises made to the citizens involved. Government allowed the inadequate schemes and allowed companies to take breaks from paying in using the excuse that there was enough in the kitty already, so it bears responsibility. Not that the public should cover before any chance of getting the companies to pay as they agreed first.

And in future there should be more scrutiny over the viability of the pension schemes that employers offer, and ensuring the companies are fulfilling what they need to do. We don't need this deception to continue in the future.
Private schemes have their own sets of rules, part and parcel of terms and conditions of employment. Contract terms, if you will.

Retro-active rule changes are exceptionally rare and, rightly, create newspaper headlines because they are a breach of contract with the retirees.

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If this does go ahead, it will be the thin end of a very long wedge, a wedge that will effect us all.
// the government pay 100% of every failed pension scheme?//

well there is a pensions regulator ( set up when Maxwell stole pension funz) and the insurance scheme - which would be wiped out by the steel deficit

and we may be sure that the pension trustees wont have THEIR pensions diminished.

and pension trust rules saying they shouldnt take risks
like the rest of us ( and certainly not like day traders or shorters )

so that is a difficult one

saying join the company pension scheme as they ( everyone) are now required and then saying - your contributions are nt safe and you may nnot get out what you put in ..... no one would join one would they ?
By the way, CPI is a novelty, relatively speaking. It cannot have been written into the pension scheme rules of somone who retired 15 years ago, surely?

Government only invented CPI so they can diddle pensioners out of yet more money (some of us, promised 65, now 67, have had a full 2 years' pension robbed from us, even before that).
// If this does go ahead, it will be the thin end of a very long wedge, a wedge that will effect us all.//

agreed mikey -can I have BA ?

previous contributions are 'safe' as they are protected by the principle of reasonable expectation - introduced by the human rights act schweik.

Yes ! schweik vote Brexit and your pension will go down the drain !

what they are arguing about according to Paul Lewis of Money Box live is how the pension rise from year to year will be calculated.

they wanna change it from RPI ( big ) to CPI ( smaller ) and that means up to £5k in twenty years per year ....
and this has already been done for some state pensions apparently ( not mine)

and for those lovers of the law thread
it all depends on what the wording of the pension memorandum of association says or stipulates. SOme say ya can and some say ya can;t

hence the need for primary legislation

and of course the MPs some of them are wickering because they have the wit to work out - - - - someone may do it to them !

Surely pensions don't rise. Not in real terms. These schemes hopefully have a promise to try to keep the pension retain it's value but that would surely be a minimum requirement for a pension.
Hypo - you said in aprevious thread your health was not so good
I hoep it is better

no the pension docs may or may not allow 'on an index to be determined from time to time' and that will allow CPI
and others specify an existing index
( Paulie on money box live - will be on catcch up )
So retail or consumer. Which better reflects a person's real life experience ?
// but that would surely be a minimum requirement for a pension.//

yeah but we call that "the race to the bottom" - I think Paulie came out with that somewhere - and the new lower CPI is part of that

the ZF axiom says that there is always a lowest member of an ordered set
and CPI so far fits that bill ... of all the ways to calculate a rise for inflation CPI is the least ....
ogod isnt it nice ro have a Brexit free thread !

( ys I am aware of the irony klaxon since I mentioned it above... )
The BBC newssite article mentions freezing which is a lot more than a change of measurement.

Money Box, is that the noon version today, or last Saturday ?
@Peter

Thanks for your good wishes. I am mending, slowly but anonymity at risk if I go into specifics.

@O_G

At least one index was permanently ruined by inclusion of house prices.
let's not forget, mikey, that it was your mr brown, representing your party, that stole billions from the pensions of many workers in 1997.....
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/pensions/10798785/True-cost-of-Labours-pension-tax-raid-and-others-since-Seventies.html

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