Now -read the book!

Here is a link to my memoirs which, if you are a glutton for punishment, you can purchase online at https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/an-obscure-footnote-in-trade-union-history.
Men fight and lose the battle, and the thing that they fought for comes about in spite of their defeat, and when it comes turns out not to be what they meant, and other men have to fight for what they meant under another name. (William Morris - A Dream of John Ball)

Monday, November 09, 2015

Exit payment cap presages further attacks on pensions?

http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2015-16/enterprise.html

Clause 26 of the Enterprise Bill, which imposes the "public sector exit payment cap" has emerged largely unscathed from the Bill's Committee stage in the House of Lords.

Government Ministers blithely accepted that the cap, which has been marketed as aimed at the handful of "fat cats" who are the focus of attention for the Daily Mail and the Taxpayers' Alliance, will in fact hit long serving public servants a long way from the earnings stratosphere.

The impact of the cap will be to impose reductions on the pensions of staff made redundant at (or over) 55 if the "strain payment" for paying them an unreduced pension would tip their total package over the £95,000 threshold. Such reductions would be made for life - meaning that workers forced out of employment through no fault of their own would not simply suffer the immediate consequences of their redundancy but would be impoverished for the remainder of their life.

The Government won't even be clear about the implementation date for the cap, stating only that this will be after the Bill receives Royal Assent (obviously) and that this will be next summer.

It seems the Lords were reluctant to undo a manifesto commitment - when the Bill reaches the Commons we'll need to lobby MPs so that they understand the consequences of this vindictive measure.

We'll also need to alert trade union members to this attack on our rights. 

In local government the change to our pension regulations consequent upon the imposition of the cap breaches the promise of the last Government that the 2012 pensions settlement would last a generation.

This doubtless presages ‎further attacks on public service pensions. We need to mobilise our members to prepare for action to defend our jobs and our pension rights.

Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the EE network.


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Have you any idea when this Exit Cap is likely to receive Royal Assent ?
As I understand once it's been given Royal Assent, further secondary legislation details the implementation date etc.
Your views would be appreciated.

Jon Rogers said...

Thanks for the timely reminder to blog again about this. With my employer I am working on the assumption that they cannot bring this in before October because of the need for secondary legislation.