Pensions: Tax Relief

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Lord Brookman

Tuesday 6th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I give the noble Baroness the same response that I gave to her noble friend at the beginning of this exchange. We looked at alternatives to the current regime a year ago and because there was no consensus we decided to stay where we are. In view of the complexities of rolling out auto-enrolment, we decided that this was not the right time for fundamental reform.

[Lord Brookman]

As someone who worked in manufacturing in the steel industry, and would have had a pension, had I not left to become a full-time official of the union—I got a better one—I remember gatecrashing the pensions management committee, on which we had representatives. I shall come to my question in a second. This is a true story. The character running the pension scheme asked, “What are you doing here? You have representatives”. I said that I wanted to know what was going on. He said, “Everything is going on. Your members are paying in; we match it. They retire at 65, or 60 if they have enough years’ service, and they die seven years later”. Does anybody agree with that?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I very much hope that whatever the noble Lord’s history of employment, he is in receipt of a generous pension.