RPI to CPI Early Day Motion 1032

JohnB47

teacher_retired wrote: »

Well said we have given them enough time. Lets ignore them and keep to the thread which is proving very valuable. I think March 26th will be a very important starting point to progress on this issue.
I also notice none of the shadow cabinet seem to have signed EDM 1032 does anyone know of the official labour party view of this issue?

My MP said that, as a minister, he is prohibited from signing EDMs. So presumably that's why you don't see any cabinet ministers signatures. Keep up the good work

Interested_Taxpayer

JohnB47 wrote: »

My MP said that, as a minister, he is prohibited from signing EDMs. So presumably that's why you don't see any cabinet ministers signatures. Keep up the good work

Yes but I understand he can agree to support the subject and the intended outcome of the EDM without signing it. So it is worth pursuing this.

teacher_retired

bendix wrote: »

Great idea.

Ignore views that don't agree with your own, and continue to whip each other up into a lather of self-congratulatory enthusiasm as your trawl around looking for obscure weblinks to send to ministers.

Smart move.

Did someone say something?

teacher_retired

JohnB47 wrote: »

My MP said that, as a minister, he is prohibited from signing EDMs. So presumably that's why you don't see any cabinet ministers signatures. Keep up the good work

I was wondering about the shadow cabinet and labour party position.
Has anyone written to the shadow cabinet?

Andy_L

Interested_Taxpayer wrote: »

. With the average Civil Service pensions at £6700 a year, with a quarter of retired civil servants receiving less than £2000 a year (www.cspa.co.uk) this is yet another thing for a lot of people to worry about later in EDM.

However thats made up of lots of people who have tiny pensions based on, eg, ~3 years service back in the 70's, So not that useful a statistic. Indeed its about as useful as just comparing average private vs public sector salaries and saying they show something useful

Andy_L

Old_Slaphead wrote: »

As regards those entitled to RPI - it's those who have it legally written into there contracts and not those who logically extrapolate it from previous inferences.

AIUI/IMO etc the legal challenge is that the attemt to apply it to past service (ie service accrued when the 1974 act said RPI) is a change to accrued rights which is prevented under various other bits of pension legislation.
Change for future accrual is fair-game, and down to negotiation, industrial action, political lobbying and recruitment/retention difficulties

Thicko2

What really annoys me on this topic is the lack of knowedge and the concept of fairness that appears to have been completely removed by this coallition government in their attempts to handle this issue, and public sector pensions generally.

NHS pensions fo example. Currently this is a pay as you go fund and is also a net contributor back to the treasury after employer and employee contributions are accounted for - to a tune of over £1bn. Plans are in place to cap employer contributions if actuary forecasts demand it, hence risk is passed on to employees for the futre, many of the issues identifed by Hutton are already implemented, increased and tiered member contributions, 65 retirement age scheme etc. This was all negoitated in a fair and reasonable manner, not by such unilateral action by the government.

So with a stroke by ministerial decree, the RPI to CPI devalues members CTV value by circa 15% despite the fact the fund is in surplus, and we are told to expect to pay 3% more contributions in the future is the current rumour. I might have more sympathy for the government view if the scheme was a net drain on the treasury but it is not.

When every bit of documentation from the pension agency has referred to RPI increase for god knows how many years, the unfairness for changing the benefits of past service appears morally questionable and i hope will be challenged in court. The whole approach is in line with the coallition agenda.

They do have a very poisened challice potentially to face, by continuing to devalue the benefits and ask members to pay more, will they lose the take up rate. If so there will be less payers in, to pay out current pensioners, leading to a greater drain on the public finances.

Interested_Taxpayer

Thicko2 wrote: »

When every bit of documentation from the pension agency has referred to RPI increase for god knows how many years, the unfairness for changing the benefits of past service appears morally questionable and i hope will be challenged in court. The whole approach is in line with the coallition agenda.

Amen Thicko2. Amen.

MEY_3

Old Slaphead; You said beneficial I said, necessary. The semantics don't change the argument's thrust at all, that you believe adopting a lower index rate for wages, benefits and pensions assists industry to be more competive. You then didn't expand in answer to my question as to why any inflation index is necessary/helpful at all in that case?

The inference that you believe no one should get RPI - entitled or otherwise - was made because you said a low indexing would beneficial to the competitiveness of industry. As CPI is historically almost without exception lower than RPI then this means you must favour CPI vis a vis the two indexes. Unless you approve of different indexes being used across wages, benefits and pensions (which would be irrational given the point of your argument) this must mean you prefer CPI or a lower index to be used in all cases to accomplish the benefits to industry. Hence you feel no one should (ideally) get RPI.
After explicitly stating you didn't say no-one should have RPI, and reproving me for suggesting you had (even though the logical inference is there), and going on to say" By staying silent on a subject it doesn't automatically follow that I agree it", (You, staying silent on the subject! When was that?) you then go on to break the unnoticed silence by saying, "As regards those entitled to RPI - it's those who have it legally written into there contracts and not those who logically extrapolate it from previous inferences."
So fundamentally the issue becomes one in which you accept some have an entitlement to RPI based on their (or their scheme) contract but not other schemes that had inferred it. Well, that brings us right back to one of the issues. You know. The one I regaled you with a couple of posts ago. Are people that were explicitly led to believe that the scheme was tied to RPI entitled or not? You really don't want me to repeat that all over again do you. And how do you see those "entitled" to RPI fit into your ideal of a lower index for all wages, pensions and benefits that you would prefer to see for the sake of industry? And why do you then, having broken the solidarity of the CPI induced industrial benefit you lionise by accepting some on RPI, are you not willing to concede that there may be others who may have a reasonable expectation of retaining RPI? Generally it is the age of the scheme that determines what's in the trust deed. Your interpretation is a pretty arbitary way of differentiating between the gets and the get nots.

Oh! One final point. You said about the benefits of low inflation to industrial competitiveness but later said, "low indexing all round would be beneficial for everyone in the long run". Incorrect. Low inflation is of benefit to everyone - inflation proofing that less accurately measures personal inflation than reality is of no benefit to many who depend on money to pay for goods and services. Low inflation and low rates of inflation proofing are not the same thing nor deliver equal benefit for all.

Old_Slaphead

MEY – we could argue, and you know I’d be happy to do so, until we’re both blue in the face about what was said/what was meant but, I’m now persona non gratis around here, so I’ll just watch your thread from afar and only contribute if it strays well away from it’s intended topic.

The MSE forums are usually good natured banter & debate – often educational, illuminating and provocative but occasionally crass. Clearly your contributors don’t value my input as ‘a different point of view’ so no point in wasting my/your time by replying (even though Thicko2’s recent posting, though ill-informed on funding issues, is worthy of further discussion – but, then again, the examination of how public sector pensions are financed is outside of this thread’s remit).

Will any of the contributors continue posting on MSE once the RPI/CPI issue has been resolved ?