Thursday 10 January 2008

The UK's most generous pensions - again

Just spotted this bit on the TaxpayersAlliance site. As I posted the other day, I actually agree that MPs pensions are too generous, but I want to focus on the bit from Ros Altmann:

Ros Altmann of the Pensions Action Group said: 'MPs in the past have voted themselves the most generous pensions of just about anywhere in the world.

'There must be one or two top directors who have voted themselves something more generous but that's about it.'


I'm fairly sure this is off the mark. Accrual rates of 1/30th have been very common in boardrooms in the UK in recent history. So I would be pretty confident in saying that more directors than MPs have benefitted from super-generous DB schemes. What's more directors continue to benefit from preferential decision when the DB to DC shift occurs - they typically receive much higher company contributions than other employees in the same business. I can't see any justification for this whatsoever.

Off on a tangent and thinking about MPs pay and conditions, I find myself sharing a bit of common ground with the views of this Tory blogger. I'm not sure I agree about the point about outside directorships, but I am wary of 'professional' politicians and I agree that MPs are NOT paid too much given the amount of time and dedication the job entails.

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