Now Labour score own goal with poster...

[webbyson]

I try and avoid these political debates now but must bring you up on this. The whole point of Pensions Holidays was to encourage private companies to keep final salary schemes. Pensions holidays were/are only available if schemes themselves were funded by more than something like 120% according to actuarial valuations. Essentially the parent company had put in 20% more money than was needed to keep the fund nice and healthy and topped up to full. And the holiday was just that - a break until the funding dropped below this maximum limit. At no time was an underfunded scheme allowed a holiday.

In fact in 1997, when GB was chancellor he effectively killed off final salary schemes with his tax on dividends. Check out Hansard and he makes specific reference to the healthy surpluses enjoyed by schemes.

Nowadays, outside the public sector almost all final salary schemes are closed to new members and the PCSPS (principal civil service pension scheme - the one for central government employees) is unfunded - this means that the government underwrites the whole scheme so there is no pot of money or actuarial valuation. GB has completely killed off company final pension schemes.

The other thing is that pension schemes are often huge shareholders in companies. Income goes down by 20% because of this tax so they demand bigger dividends which companies have to service at the cost of greater inward investment, hence greater short-termism in the UK stockmarket and business.

Make no bones about it. GB f***ed up a system that was working very nicely. For that alone he ought to be kicked from office.

You may well be correct Ponce but it is a fact that companies (Unilever, remember their pension fiasco) took so called Pension holidays to save millions of pounds but reduced the surplus bonuses of the Pension funds which was used to keep shareholders and company directors happy with thier bonuses at the expense of the workers pensions.
My point is pensions have suffered under this goverment but the last Tory goverment also introduced policies that contributed in the reduction of employees hard earned pensions.
I, like you rarely enter the polictical debates on here because at the end of the day its a matter of choice and while its healthy to debate points of view there is always posters with far more intelligence than yourself
As they say on Dragons Den.........because of that........I am out..