Horizon was Bad , but How about the Private Pension Scam?
It all started with Robert Maxwell, the proprietor of Mirror Newspapers and raider of the very healthy Mirror Newspaper Pension Fund. Also the father of Ghislaine Maxwell who herself made headlines in the new millennium, first as a darling Socialite and then as a woman involved in sexual trafficking of underage girls for Celebrity parties including Royal Guests. Her devious daddy died suspiciously by falling off his luxury yacht and his employees having invested in a very healthy Company pension scheme were left with nothing. Ghislaine is currently in prison in America serving a significant sentence and presumably planning a book ( with film rights) on her exploits once she gets out.
The raiding of the Mirror Pension Scheme rather than being regarded as criminal action , was seen by Politicians over the last 60 years (previously an acceptable age for retirement) as an opportunity to bail out their misguided policies or indeed finance the privileged life that MP’s and Government Representatives including those private individuals appointed as Advisors to Government on significant salaries and non-contributory pensions have led.
Who financed their lifestyles? The Great British Public of course. The ultimate insult is that the Right and Left of Politics want us to regard them as financial icons, as go getting achievers who have the right to live a luxurious lifestyle at our expense because they …… well deserve it. Or infact because they are the greatest grifters and abusers of Power in the History of Public Service.
Perhaps the recent threat of Pandemic and the unseemly rush to supply the NHS with desperately needed ” Ventilators ” and ” Personal Protective Equipment” showed what they were capable of. Health is big business and it attracted the likes of Lady Michelle Mone and Matt Hancock to tout for and divvy out Government Contracts to Suppliers who had no capability to produce a valid product. Or indeed had any experience or indeed were on an approved list of NHS Suppliers .
An early example being Dyson, from Hoovers to Ventilators , thankfully despite Dyson quoting heroically; common sense prevailed and the actual requirement for ventilators was medically assessed as a last resort and one in which the 10% survival rate once the patient reached that stage was deemed inefficient and that other care policies were more successful. Thankfully. Otherwise there would be a lot of redundant ventilators taking up valuable space in hospitals throughout the Country.
There are ongoing Court Cases and Government Enquiries into what has gone wrong that again are costing the Public Purse a fortune. These of course are self-generating and will go on ad infinitum, much like the Post Office Horizon Scandal will continue.
So where has all this money come from? Well when I was in my late twenties, we were encouraged to take out a Private Pension and transfer our payment of National Insurance Contributions to a Government Pension to a Private Company Pension. I do believe the term was to Contract Out. At the time we were told that it was the best option for us and that the pensions would be portable and if we changed job that we could carry our pension with us and that the new employer would make their contributions, very often equalling the contribution that the employee was making, so part of our earning package and something we were putting aside for our future retirement.
Except that was not how it worked. Firstly the Pensions were not portable, each Company I joined insisted that I joined their scheme, there was no option for them to pay into my quite healthy Norwich Union Pension( later Aviva) .Even if you were in a Company , that Company could change the Pension Provider to a new scheme and the frequency with which this happened made me think that someone was getting a cut on this deal, most likely the Company Executives. As a result I ended up with six Private Pensions.
Still that was small fry in comparison to the Government raids on the Profits from these schemes. Yes Maxwell definitely paved the way for that. Initially I was in the Austin Rover Pension scheme , paying a significant amount of my monthly income into the fund only to have the profits from the fund hived off by the Government to support the dying business I was employed in.
I remember when I left , I had £5,000 in the fund and was told the best thing to do was to leave it there, but I wanted it transferred to my Norwich Union pension that my new employer had set up for us. I think it cost something , but if I hadn’t have made that transaction ,I would have lost that money because twenty years later , with a Government Sellout the Rover Group was no more and the Pension fund also disappeared.
Moving on, when I reached 45, I was regarded , like most people as someone who simply was never going to have enough of a Private Pension to finance my retirement , this was despite having paid my contributions. So I was told to contract back in , which I did. I think this must be similar to most people. I could still keep making employee contributions to my Private Pension , and therefore still qualifying for the employers ( tax deductible ) contributions, without the Government contributing , indeed my NI contributions would go to my State Pension this seemed reasonable and frankly as I now realise fortuitous.
As of today, I qualify with current rules for the State Pension, which to be honest wouldn’t buy Lady Mone’s supply of make up and hair appointments for a month, but I and my partner having lived an enjoyable but financially astute life can quite happily live on. Perhaps I am tired, having worked all my life , but yachts, foreign holidays, endless parties and possessions seem pointless, I mean I don’t want to retire to Greece, much as I’m sure it’s very nice.
I really don’t understand that if the economy has boomed over the last 60 years, the financial markets have risen over those years , a lot of money has been made. So why after paying in into a Private Pension over the last 45 years have I been left with a fund that won’t even pay me £20/ month to live on. Is it some kind of bad joke. What happened to the Champagne Charlies who could make million’s by betting against the tide of Black Friday’s and Monday’s stock market debacles. Why weren’t they in charge of my Pension Fund, and why did the Government represented by Gordon Brown regard Private Pension Funds as a source of Government income ( Just like Maxwell) and removed their tax relief to fill the Government Coffers .Wasn’t that the contributors money? Wasn’t it theft, don’t the profits go to the investors?
Surely Pensions and the fact that people like me have been thrown to the wolves, and been forced to pay into something that was never properly regarded as an investment opportunity , more of a way of removing the burden of debt caused by a population who are now expected to work until they drop, but who if the funds had been managed properly could have had a decent retirement at a reasonable age.
In other words, was it a scam? Probably.
It’s worse for those who are going through what I went through forty years ago. The working population today are under so much pressure. Sad to say the figures for a normal person on an average wage today just don’t add up, and just to live is difficult enough without putting money into a Private Pension. I’m not sure what the advice is today on contracting out or whether the Government sees National Insurance as the best solution to financing pensions, but one thing I’m certain of is that Private Pensions for most people were a not fit for purpose.
Namaste and Thank You for Reading.
thenotsomightyom 