• chevron_right

      Sunak’s triple lock pledge could mean pension age rising to 68 earlier, Tory ex-ministers warn – UK politics live

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Yesterday - 09:48

    Jeremy Hunt said that keeping the pension triple lock would be in the Conservative party’s manifesto

    Parliamentary pressure is building on the UK government to ban arms sales to Israel , amid signs that Israel intends to ignore the UN security council resolution passed this week calling on all sides to commit to a ceasefire, Patrick Wintour reports.

    The Labour party has said that water company bosses should not be getting bonuses if their firms are still polluting rivers and the sea. It has also said they should be criminally liable for repeated failures to tackle pollution.

    The Conservatives’ are too weak to get tough with polluting water companies.

    Instead of imposing Labour’s ban on water bosses’ bonuses, Steve Barclay [the environment secretary] has weakly chosen to only talk about doing it.

    Continue reading...
    • chevron_right

      The poor need the money, the rich may not – but I say hands off the state pension triple lock | Owen Jones

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Yesterday - 06:00 · 1 minute

    The policy has its critics, but as Tories and Labour vow to keep it, I back its retention. It can be made fair, and a state should care for its people

    A wealthy nation can afford to offer a comfortable and secure existence for all of its citizens. If it chooses not to do so, that is a political choice. If rationality reigned supreme, this would prove the starting point for all decisions about how society is organised. Bad news: it doesn’t, and instead much of the vast riches generated by the graft of millions of workers ends up hoovered into the bank accounts – and offshore tax havens – of a tiny few. The result? It’s easy to encourage the general population to believe that they’re locked in trench warfare over ever-scarcer resources, with so little to go around that politics is merely the art of managing a zero-sum game.

    Enter, then, the question of the triple lock on the state pension, which both Tories and Labour have confirmed will feature in their upcoming manifestos. First introduced by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition in 2010, it ensures that pensioners’ entitlements increase each April in line with whatever is highest: inflation, the average increase in wages, or a 2.5% minimum. That means more than £100bn is now splashed on the state pension each year, by far the biggest single item of social security spending, while working-age benefits have fallen drastically behind. When you include other entitlements, well over half of the welfare state ends up in pensioners’ bank accounts. At the same time, more than 60% of older Britons own their home outright , sitting on golden eggs that have only appreciated in value.

    Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist

    Continue reading...
    • chevron_right

      Sunak denies ‘crisis’ in local government funding despite bankruptcy warnings

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 2 days ago - 17:09

    Prime minister tells MPs the priority is to get inflation down even though English councils need another £4bn to maintain services

    Rishi Sunak has denied there is a “crisis” in local government funding despite warnings that well-run councils are on the brink of bankruptcy and local services at risk without more support.

    The prime minister admitted that councils faced “challenges”, in particular with inflation, which has significantly outpaced recent cash injections, at the cross-party liaison committee.

    Continue reading...
    • chevron_right

      Little planning for looming retirement crisis, BlackRock chief warns

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 2 days ago - 14:43

    Larry Fink tells investors pension savings failing to keep pace with life-extending medical breakthroughs

    The chief executive of the world’s largest asset manager is warning of a future “retirement crisis”, as pension savings fail to keep up with life-extending medical breakthroughs.

    In his annual letter to investors , the BlackRock chief executive, Larry Fink, said that establishing “a secure, well-earned retirement” would be one of the greatest economic challenges to face the US in the mid-21st century.

    Continue reading...
    • chevron_right

      The Guardian view on the Waspi women: findings of maladministration must lead to redress | Editorial

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 7 days ago - 19:02

    Successive governments failed to explain pension changes. Thousands of women are entitled to compensation

    The final report by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman on the way pension entitlement changes affecting women passed into law between 1995 and 2011 is a milestone in a long-running campaign – but not the end. Five years ago the women lost a discrimination case they had brought against the government. Their complaint to the ombudsman was the result, and the verdict vindicates their claim to have been unjustly treated.

    The ombudsman made an initial set of findings in the women’s favour, and against the Department for Work and Pensions, in 2021. Now, these are added to by further instances of maladministration . While the failures uncovered are serious in their own right, the expectation set out in the report that the DWP will refuse to act on them is also very concerning.

    Continue reading...
    • chevron_right

      ‘I felt like I’d been scammed’: woman describes chaos of state pension age changes

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 7 days ago - 14:55

    Hilary Simpson was forced to make lump sum intended for five years stretch to over 10

    Hilary Simpson was happy in 2009, when she was 55, to take early retirement from her job in local government. She wanted to help her daughter get on in her career by taking on childcare responsibilities of her granddaughter. And, after 30 years of hard work, she wanted to relax.

    “It was an attractive offer we were given,” she says. “A lump sum and then a reduced pension. I assumed – because I had no evidence to the contrary – that I’d be getting my pension at 60. I drew up a spreadsheet for how to make the lump sum last five years, then signed on the dotted line.”

    Continue reading...
    • chevron_right

      Thousands of UK women owed pension payout after ombudsman’s Waspi ruling

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 7 days ago - 10:29

    The way women’s state pension age was raised plunged retirement plans into chaos with many now in line for compensation

    Thousands of women are owed compensation because of government failings related to the way changes to the state pension age were made, a long-awaited official report has said.

    The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) said those affected were owed compensation but added that that Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) had clearly indicated it would “refuse to comply”, which was “unacceptable”.

    Continue reading...
    • chevron_right

      Norton former owner ‘should have been jailed over pension fraud’ – Pensions Ombudsman chair

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Wednesday, 20 March - 17:00

    Stuart Garner was convicted of three offences in 2022 after illegally investing others’ retirement savings in his own businesses

    The disgraced former owner of Norton Motorcycles should have served jail time for his role in the multi-million-pound pension fraud, the chair of the Pensions Ombudsman service has told a parliamentary inquiry into the scandal.

    The comments by Anthony Arter will be viewed by victims as a thinly veiled criticism of a prosecution run by the Pensions Regulator against former Norton boss, Stuart Garner, who was convicted of three pensions offences in 2022 but avoided prison because the regulator did not allege dishonesty.

    Continue reading...
    • chevron_right

      Immigration is good for tax receipts - and five other things we learned from the budget

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Saturday, 9 March - 15:15

    Just one of the messages that may surprise fans of Britain’s chancellor

    Economic growth… relies on employees being more effective

    The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) looks ahead five years in its forecast of economic growth and the public finances to help the chancellor judge what he can afford. Analysis to accompany the spring budget by the OBR claims productivity, as measured by the output per worker per hour, will increase significantly between now and 2029, despite being almost flat for the last 15 years.

    Continue reading...