It is hard to work out what is happening in the lead-up to the budget on November 26th and this is what a Government needs to do to properly understand what measures will have a positive impact on Britain. It may also be an attempt by the current Government to limit the damage to it from not having a spokesperson who can speak with authority on economic matters.
Here is a problem for Rachel Reeves, she does not have a fan club in the population prepared to stand behind her, so each new idea that is floated comes back with the same public outcry
“you said it would be better by now”.
It is not looking much better, it looks that the freeze on tax thresholds will be extended beyond 27/28 to the end of the parliamentary term (which may not be much of a stetch if things don’ improve).
It looks as if the rise in income tax which has been floated may be withdrawn so a victory for the Chancellor in keeping her word can be triumphed during and after her speech.
It looks as if the taxes on soon to be or actual pensioners (on the tax free cash) will be scrapped and instead there will be a ceiling on the amount of income that can be sacrificed to make pension contributions more affordable to employers and employees.
But there are many other things that the Government could do , all of which would have impacts on pensions one way or another.
The capital taxes on gains , on inheritance and the transactional costs of moving money around can all deliver money to the Exchequer to help with the economic woes Britain is having.
All of this supposition omits the one important factor that Blair and Brown got right and this Government has failed to encourage – optimism.
There is not a voice coming from Downing Street or even from the executive – the Cabinet – that is creating a sense of charisma for Britain. So we gaze on grimly as Starmer and Reeves trudge through the weeks and we wonder how the voices of ordinary people will be turned from sullen to excited, as I remember Britain two years into the Blair/Brown Government before the millennium.
In my job I am looking at creation of excitement but I find it hard to respond to Government as I would want to. I am currently completing a consultation for the 19th November to do with the risks of whole of life (UMES) CDC. I say “risks” because the obsession with restricting things from going wrong with CDC so overwhelms the likelihood that it will make income in retirement better, that you wonder why we are bothering!
We are bothering because we know that we can do so much better with the money that we have saved than we are doing now. We know that DB pensions can become a source of capital not a drain on corporate cashflows and on investment for workers. LGPS should no longer be a sap on business rates and council tax. We should not cry out for more money to pay workplace private pensions but find ways to make our pots turn to proper pensions.
If Government employees had the “optimism” to go for it, whether they are in the Treasury or in DWP, whether in Brighton or Stratford. If they were encouraged to see those they legislate and regulate as on the same side, we would have some optimism.
So I will turn back to the consultations, to the dismal view of the likely outcomings of CDC that stalks the consultations and I will work with my colleagues to find a way to get beyond the risks that confront the reader.
We have an optimistic Pension Schemes Bill, we have a way forward for pensions which is good news for people’s retirement and I am determined that we will make the best of the opportunity we are presented with, an opportunity we have fought for, for decades.
This is part two of auto-enrolment savings for retirement, it’s the spending bit and it could return us to the kind of optimism that Blair/Brown gave us and to the “best endeavours” pensions that came before the clampdown.
We’ve had 20 years of Clampdown and London is now Calling.
I first came to London in 1979, to live for a summer with a girl and we sang London Calling. It ends..
“After all this, won’t you give me a smile?”
