Renewed Attacks on the Triple Lock

Update on the recent Change.org petition about the triple lock: 
"We are preparing for fresh attacks on the Triple Lock in the autumn".
This petition was signed by 329,834 people; see the full update here.

What opponents of the triple lock fail to understand is that it is applied to one of the lowest retirement pensions of countries with economies comparable to the UK. Left alone, the lock would very slowly compensate for that discrepancy. However, if you're a rich Tory, you'll think why waste money on people who are economically inactive anyway?

'Economically inactive', except for the money pensioners spend in shops, pubs (especially me!) and other hospitality outlets, holidays when they can be afforded, and even bestowed upon children and grandchildren to spend. Such recycling of money is essential to a successful economy and across the whole country adds up a huge amount being invested by pensioners in goods and services. But Tories are so blinkered that all they can see is the bill to the Treasury, while conveniently forgetting that the pensioners paid into that self-same Treasury throughout their entire working lives, and continue to contribute through income tax and, where applicable, VAT and duty on all taxable purchases that they make.

The people who ARE a drain on the economy are the billionaires and multimillionaires who salt away fortunes abroad in shady tax havens, with many shielding behind the legalised tax fraud of non-dom status,

Civil Service Compensation scheme age discrimination

A message from the AGS:

PCS is looking for ordinary and associate and retired members willing to bring cases following an employment tribunal ruling that the 6 months cap on compensation for redundancy for those over their civil service pension age within the Civil Service Compensation Scheme is not proportionate and is therefore direct age discrimination.

If you think you may have been affected please click on the following link for more information here.

Please continue to check the ‘News’ page of the PCS website for updates.

John Moloney

Assistant General Secretary

AGS update on pension overpayments

Within the Civil Service Pension Scheme two different pensions reviews were undertaken which resulted in the recalculation of some pensions, the rectification of Guaranteed Minimum Pension (GMP) and an Internal Control Framework Review.

Civil Service Pensions agreed to waive all overpayments identified by GMP Rectification.

MyCSP failed to act on information supplied by employers some years ago which has caused approximately 13,000 pensions to be recalculated. MyCSP made adjustments to pensions and in around 2,000 cases are seeking recovery of overpayments.

Civil Service unions were not consulted in advance about this review.

PCS’s view is that the circumstances giving rise to the revision exercise amounts to maladministration. We have pressed for consistency with the way GMP cases were treated i.e. all overpayments are written off.

Civil Service Pensions acknowledged the failure to consult unions which raises serious issues of concern. It is important that enough information is provided to enable scheme members to have a reasonable level of assurance that it is correct. This applies to changes which increase as well as decrease pensions.

Advice can be obtained from ARMs Region/Nation Secretaries or from your nearest PCS Hub, details on the PCS website.

John Moloney

Assistant General Secretary

Liverpool WASPI rally - 3 August

Hungry For Justice

PCS members and reps are encouraged to support the Liverpool WASPI group in their activity this weekend to maintain and highlight their important campaign over state pension changes. Details of their Hungry for Justice picnic in the park activity are as follows:

• Saturday 3 August 2019.
• 1.00 pm to 3.00 pm.
• Chavasse Park, Liverpool.

Equality through shared deprivation

The triple lock - deeply begrudged
by the wealthy

The Merseyside Pensioners Association has condemned the proposals of the Lords Committee on Intergenerational Fairness and Provision, a title borrowed straight form the George Orwell library of double-speak.

This body of unelected, well-heeled Lords calls for an end to the ‘triple lock’, which guarantees the state pension rises by the highest of inflation, wage growth or 2.5 per cent; an end of free television licences, and bus passes and winter fuel payments to be scrapped or scaled back; and for a national insurance surcharge.

Their Lordships justify these cuts with the phoney argument to ‘tilt the balance between the generations back towards younger groups’ because, they argue, the spending power of retired people has now overtaken many workers in their 20s and 30s, and that help should be stepped up for younger people in the jobs and housing markets.

There is no mention of the massive tax cuts for the rich, the wrecking of local council’s ability to build houses for rent, the low-wage zero hours jobs young people are faced with, and all the other inequalities in a society based on capitalism.

Far from OAPs being ‘privileged’, UK state pensions are the lowest in Western Europe, and thousands of OAPs die from hypothermia each year. We agree with John McDonnell’s description of the proposed national insurance surcharge as a ‘a tax on getting old’. This is a further cynical attempt to divide the generations while they figure out how to enrich their already fabulously rich friends and it gives further urgency to the election of a Corbyn-led government committed to the implementation of socialist policies.

Tony Mulhearn,
MPA Media Officer &
ARMS activist

Miners pension fund fight

This petition calls upon the UK Government to review the mineworkers' pension fund to reduce the 50/50 share of the surplus that the Government takes from the system. It has been many years since the mineworkers and widows have had an increase in their pension (other than cost of living increases). They deserve a fair increase in their pension.

Since 1994, both Labour and Tory governments have taken from the surplus of the miners' pension fund at a rate of £1 million per day, making a total of £8 billion. The government must reduce the deduction from 50% of the surplus to a more reasonable percentage. 

Sign the petition here.

Work and Pensions Committee inquiry on "intergenerational fairness"

The Work and Pensions Committee launches a major new inquiry on "intergenerational fairness" – the question of whether the current generation of people in or approaching retirement will over the course of their lifetimes have enjoyed and accumulated much more housing and financial wealth, public service usage, and welfare and pension entitlements than more recent generations can hope to receive.

More details from the Parliament website.