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Labour's LTA plans?

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  • Malthusian
    Malthusian Posts: 11,055 Forumite
    Tenth Anniversary 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    edited 8 February 2024 at 4:06PM
    hyubh said:
    It was a private joke for the incoming minister, supposedly based on a tradition of saying that...
    There has never been a tradition of leaving notes for incoming Treasury ministers saying "I'm afraid there is no money". Liam Byrne tried to justify the "no money" letter by referencing Reginald Maudling's "Sorry to leave things in such a mess, old [male chicken]", but that was almost 50 years before his.

    He admitted that he came up with the idea by himself, based on a catchphrase he'd been using in budgetary negotiations with civil servants. 

    (It is also worth noting that in the same article where he flagellated himself for leaving the note, he described Labour's handling of the credit crisis as "an incredible achievement we should never have stopped shouting about". Even when trying to write mea culpas they just can't help themselves.)

    Many new governments take charge when there is plenty of money swishing around - Byrne's party took office near the end of the longest bull market in history. 
  • Pat38493
    Pat38493 Posts: 3,323 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    I think many professionals and high earners - myself amongst them -  especially those hovering around the £100-150k mark conclude that it isn't worth working so many hours, if at all, and paying so much tax what with withdrawal of PA, 45% tax, childcare withdrawal, etc.  I have dropped from full time to 4 days per week because the "value" of that fifth day is not 20%, with the tax it is more like 5% and it is not worth my time, I'd rather do something else with that day like ride my bike or do some charity work.  At least the LTA has been abolished (hopefully permanently).
    Without getting into politics unduly, the Conservative party, the supposed "party of low taxation", has presided over this mess.
    To be fair, remember when the Tories took over? - they found a note from the outgoing treasury minister saying "sorry - there's no money left".

    And we (the tax payers) will be paying the financial cost of Covid for many years to come.


    And this year will be the same situation again in reverse, whether they actually write it on a note or not.  
  • tim9333 said:
    All this talk about reinstating the LTA will encourage anyone with a large pension pot but not in labour's core public sector to consider early retirement now before a general election

    Say they used their crystallised pot to purchase an annuity, how is labour going to make the LTA retrospective? 
    Exactly, Labour should reconfirm their plans on the LTA immediately, many people are currently taking serious pension decisions now that will indeed mean more people probably leaving the working population prematurely. 

    A lot of institutions and people often think pension activation is hard wired to dropping out of the workforce, but it's often not the case, so because of pensions football and Labour saying they will reintroduce an LTA or similar, it will be too late.

    People have been activating pensions early since Labour saud they will bring it back.

    Football is probably a bad analogy as the people playing know the difference between the goalposts behind and in front of them, pension football posts just keep moving all the time and makes targets hard and even good prudent played easily score very painful own goals. 

    Hopefully Labour's will leak out their current comments on pensions soon.


  • hyubh
    hyubh Posts: 3,722 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    hyubh said:
    It was a private joke for the incoming minister, supposedly based on a tradition of saying that...
    There has never been a tradition of leaving notes for incoming Treasury ministers saying "I'm afraid there is no money". Liam Byrne tried to justify the "no money" letter by referencing Reginald Maudling's "Sorry to leave things in such a mess, old [male chicken]", but that was almost 50 years before his.

    He admitted that he came up with the idea by himself, based on a catchphrase he'd been using in budgetary negotiations with civil servants. 

    (It is also worth noting that in the same article where he flagellated himself for leaving the note, he described Labour's handling of the credit crisis as "an incredible achievement we should never have stopped shouting about". Even when trying to write mea culpas they just can't help themselves.) 
    Right, it was a joke. 'Supposedly' based on a tradition that didn't really exist, but still a joke. He couldn't help himself (as you put it) because he didn't really mean it. Being just a joke....
  • LHW99
    LHW99 Posts: 5,215 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Photogenic Name Dropper
    Hopefully Labour's will leak out their current comments on pensions soon.

    Although whether any proposals come to pass or are U-turned on, like a lot of proposals on other things have been recently, we will have to see (not uncommon from any party unfortunately).

  • zagfles
    zagfles Posts: 21,409 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Chutzpah Haggler
    tim9333 said:
    All this talk about reinstating the LTA will encourage anyone with a large pension pot but not in labour's core public sector to consider early retirement now before a general election

    Say they used their crystallised pot to purchase an annuity, how is labour going to make the LTA retrospective? 
    Exactly, Labour should reconfirm their plans on the LTA immediately, many people are currently taking serious pension decisions now that will indeed mean more people probably leaving the working population prematurely. 

    A lot of institutions and people often think pension activation is hard wired to dropping out of the workforce, but it's often not the case, so because of pensions football and Labour saying they will reintroduce an LTA or similar, it will be too late.

    People have been activating pensions early since Labour saud they will bring it back.

    Football is probably a bad analogy as the people playing know the difference between the goalposts behind and in front of them, pension football posts just keep moving all the time and makes targets hard and even good prudent played easily score very painful own goals. 

    Hopefully Labour's will leak out their current comments on pensions soon.


    Well they've just U-turned on the "green investment plan" so watch this space...

  • zagfles
    zagfles Posts: 21,409 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Chutzpah Haggler
    edited 8 February 2024 at 6:49PM
    hyubh said:
    I think many professionals and high earners - myself amongst them -  especially those hovering around the £100-150k mark conclude that it isn't worth working so many hours, if at all, and paying so much tax what with withdrawal of PA, 45% tax, childcare withdrawal, etc.  I have dropped from full time to 4 days per week because the "value" of that fifth day is not 20%, with the tax it is more like 5% and it is not worth my time, I'd rather do something else with that day like ride my bike or do some charity work.  At least the LTA has been abolished (hopefully permanently).
    Without getting into politics unduly, the Conservative party, the supposed "party of low taxation", has presided over this mess.
    To be fair, remember when the Tories took over? - they found a note from the outgoing treasury minister saying "sorry - there's no money left".
    It was a private joke for the incoming minister, supposedly based on a tradition of saying that...

    Interested how you might compare pensions policies specifically. The previous Labour government's included A Day, setting up the PPF, the 2006-9 reforms of public sector schemes, etc. Not sure they had less of a prudent feel than the past 14 years' worth, maybe more...? Michael Gove on LGPS liabilities for new academies, remember that! Or George Osborne on nationalising the Royal Mail Final Salary pension fund...
    Numpty pension policy dates back a long way, the current farce of GMP equalisation plus all the WASPI stuff can be traced back to the hypocrisy of the 70's Labour govt passing the sex discrimination act yet not applying it to state pensions, and introducing SERPS (and hence GMP) which accrued differently for men and women because of different state pension ages!
    Then the fixing of all the deficiencies in private sector DB schemes by both parties (indexation, protection etc) plus stuff like ACT abolision etc just increased the cost of providing them massively, so now hardly any active DB scheme remain in the private sector.
    Then the A-day pension freedoms, followed by the financial crisis and so called "austerity" and "we're all in it together" meaning they had to hit the "rich" as well as "poor", reducing the LTA and AA plus stuff like the child ben withdrawal being the main tools to hit the "rich". Done for political reasons more than fiscal.
    Then the NHS and general jobs crisis where early retirees get the blame even though the main problem seems to be the rise in "long term sick", and an cross party acknowledgement that at least in the NHS problems are partly caused by pension policy and something must be done but political football about what.
    The real answer of course is to get cross party agreement on stuff like pensions as it's impossible to plan if every 5 years time we might get a new govt which changes policy direction completely. But of course pensions are too useful for politicans as a political football so it won't happen...
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