Prem Sikka, too, is an appointment to be welcomed as strengthening the Lords pensions team. Read his monograph from 2006, “Pensions crisis a failure of public policymaking”, https://t.co/xBHu7dgVKJ. Chapter 2: THE PENSIONS CRISIS: FACT AND FICTION explains the valuation and… https://t.co/CuEYPdp53C
— Dennis Leech (@Dennis_Leech) August 2, 2020
My thanks to Dennis Leech, for pointing this out, I will return to Dennis’ comments in a moment but first need to focus on Prem Sikka, for he is not a person I’ve come across. This is my bad.
Reading various articles and comments by Prem Sikka , I am struck that his twitter timeline makes no mention of the honor bestowed on him, focusing instead on instances of poor corporate governance, weak accounting and the points deduction on Sheffield Wednesday.
His writings consistently question the governance of British governance and its adherence to the principals behind ESG.
Tory grandee blames the poor for their own deaths from coronavirus – “decisions that people make about social distancing and their own health”.
So nothing to do with low wages/pensions, poor housing, austerity, inadequate NHS, lack of PPE, govt failures.https://t.co/7EMjNlU9f9— Prem Sikka (@premnsikka) July 28, 2020
The House of Lords has a another peer who is quite contrary.
This is taken from an opinion piece published in the Guardian and written by Prem Sikka in May of last year
BSL (British Steel Limited) is another corporate disaster entirely made in the UK. Despite a string of similar scandals and collapses there has been no reform of corporate governance, insolvency, accounting, auditing or anything else. There is hardly any scrutiny of private equity and its devouring of businesses. None of this neglect can be attributed to the European Union. Rather it is all the consequence of an economic and business ideology which continually seeks to appease the financial industry and oppose the democratisation of business.
Reading the paper tweeted by Dennis Leech, I discover that this man has been talking a huge amount of sense since at least 2006 and much of what he has been saying is directly relevant to the pensions debate. Which makes me wonder why it has taken Jeremy Corbyn to give us his voice in the House of Lords.
Sikka joins a growing number of voices in the Lords dissenting from the received position that pension schemes should de-risk , avoid taking on future liabilities and allow retirement risk to pass from collectives to individuals. I hope he and Bryn Davies will be given the warmest of welcomes by Baronesses Bowles and Altmann.
But back to Dennis
Dennis Leech ‘s thread is a better tribute to the relevance of Prem Sikka than you will find from my fingers, so here is the thread started above and concluded below
… funding methodology issues extremely clearly.
It starts off with:
“Following the Pensions Act 2004 about 10 million people have received letters10 telling that their pension schemes have a deficit, with the implication that their pension rights could shrink. …
— Dennis Leech (@Dennis_Leech) August 2, 2020
This debate is still happening as the pensions crisis continues to worsen and the prospect of inadequate retirement income faces millions. And the USS dispute is not about some new special pleading dreamt up by the union but matters of methodology that are fundamentally inherent.
— Dennis Leech (@Dennis_Leech) August 2, 2020
If the legacy of Jeremy Corbyn to pensions is the elevation of Bryn Davies and Prem Sikka to the House of Lords, then it is a good legacy and the House of Lords a better place for pensions.
