The Guardian’s Simon Hoggart has been collecting examples of impenetrable jargon. This week, Lib Dem pensions minister Steve Webb features:
Thanks for the many examples of jargon you’ve sent in, and we’ll have a proper look at it all soon. In the meantime, there are examples which are actually quite helpful.
Take work and pensions, which is without a doubt the most difficult of all government departments. Yet the Liberal Democrat minister Steve Webb actually seems to know exactly what he is talking about. He may be alone. See if you can decode his reply this week to a Labour MP who asked about an anomaly in the pension rules:
“People who have contracted out into an occupational pension currently get money off their state pension, which is called a contracted-out deduction. That will remain part of the single-tier proposition. Therefore, somebody who has contracted out would not get the 414. There is no cliff edge. There would be a deduction for contracting out in both cases.”
He understands it so you don’t have to! Thank heavens!
He understands it so you don’t have to – something some of us have been saying about Steve Webb for many years…
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5 Comments
Is this the new way of avoiding public scrutiny?
The only bit I couldn’t immediately understand is “414”, which I suppose I could look up. But then the mysteries of contracting out were well explained to me when I joined by first employer’s occupational scheme at the age of 22.
I think ‘414’ is a typo for £144. Given that, the message is fairly straightforward.
Short version: people who ‘contact out’ get less state pension as some of their money goes into a private pension. This will continue in the new scheme.
I think the point is that Webb knows this stuff off the top of his head.
What people will realise and understand, however, is that this new higher pension will not apply to existing pensioners, many of whom have paid in for forty years or so.
There will be a two tier pension system, dress it up as they may and that will be a vote loser, not an attraction for the so called “grey vote.” Wait until the penny drops!