Jacqui Hall makes heartfelt, but misleading, statements about the pensions issue.
What's at stake is another potentially disruptive strike, affecting our children’s education and patient care.
The benefits accruing under the NHS pension scheme, and other public service schemes, have suffered little or no impact from the effect of policies of successive governments. Nor are they affected by banks, as pension income comes directly from taxation. Ms Hall implies the NHS scheme is in surplus, and affordable, but this relates to contributions from the past which are now being rapidly eroded by the annual deficit between what’s coming in and what’s going out — about £3 billion pa!
The size of the average private sector pension is significantly dependent on the performance of the investment fund. The future for that member in retirement could be devastated if markets are down! A public servant scheme member has none of this uncertainty. It's not about a ‘race to the bottom’, it’s about fairness to the whole tax-paying community, by balancing the burden for future costs.
Derek Brooks Tottington
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