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Labour Party conference
Obviously that subject was a good one as I had gone to the conference armed with the results of our first BeeHive poll on just that topic. We’d closed the poll down that morning with over 1000 people having voted and with 95% agreeing that the way means-tested benefits are constructed for existing pensioners acts as a real disincentive to saving for those in the workforce. Thanks to all of you who contributed to that poll.
I think it’s fair to say that a statistic like that, thrown into this kind of open debate, is a bit of a bombshell. It certainly went down well with the many journalists in the audience and I hope it rocked the earnest certainties of the many party activists who had turned up to hear that all is well on the pensions front. I’m fairly sure we’ll get some good press coverage on this first attempt we’ve had at getting the views of BeeHive regulars over to a more general audience. In case we don’t get coverage in the national press on this, though, we’ll also be putting out a press release later on today when I get back from the Money Marketing Live do up in Manchester. In fact I’ve got to get going to catch the train at Euston in about ten minutes (I’m getting moaned at already), but before I go I just wanted to let you know that we’ll be changing the question on the home page of the BeeHive today and getting another vote underway.
Many of you have e-mailed in asking whether the Government is likely to be letting people know about the retrospective nature of the tax changes coming in on A-Day. For many well-heeled people in UK plc there is a very real threat that their existing pension pots could be taxed retrospectively at 55% if they don’t watch out - I’m sure you’ve read what I’ve said about this before, not least in the mother of all BeeLines I put out on scheme audits a couple of weeks (or was it light years?) ago.
Government policy (if that’s the right word) on this appears to be something along the lines of “well, there aren’t many of them and they’re well-off and pretty well advised anyway, so there’s no need to warn them”, or something like that. But I’m not so sure on any of those counts. We’ve never had retrospective pension tax laws before and it seems only polite to me that people who could be affected should be given a nod before they get hit by it. I mean, for all the Government know these guys are busy doing other things than reading about pensions all day long and may not have heard about the changes. Stranger things have happened. Anyway, I’d like to know what BeeLiners think about this, so if you’d like to get involved in the voting thing again just follow the link here if you’ve got a minute and maybe it’ll be something we can raise a little more general awareness on soon.
I’m going to have to stop writing in a minute (I’m just being screamed at, literally, as I’m writing this last bit and looking for my jacket), but I can’t close without mentioning the inaugural address to yesterday’s conference of our latest Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. It appears that new Government policy was announced in that speech (if I understood it correctly) in that they are considering ‘training’ union officials to give ‘advice’ on pensions to people in the workplace. Now I’m sure you’ll probably be able to guess at what I think about that, and it’s not just that we’ve got enough unfinished ideas knocking around in the Pensions Bill as it is without needing any more. If this turns out to be serious, then I’ll return to it in later BeeLines - I’m going to carefully read the text of the speech on the train in a minute - always assuming I catch it, of course, and judging by the almighty row going on outside my office at the moment no-one else seems to think I will...
Steve Bee
28 September 2004
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