Chancellor Philip Hammond confounded expectations yesterday by failing to make any mention at all of pensions during his Budget speech.
While he had been widely expected to raid pension tax reliefs to fund spending increases elsewhere, ultimately Mr Hammond shied away from doing so.
This was welcomed by pensions campaigner Ros Altmann, who served as pension minister in David Cameron’s government, who said she breathed a “sigh of relief” when Mr Hammond did not mention pensions in his speech.
The biggest announcement on pensions contained in the Budget documents was that the Government “is taking steps to support the launch of pensions dashboards” to help savers “see their pension pots, including their state pension, in one place”. First mooted by then Chancellor George Osborne in 2016, the idea behind the dashboard is to help people prepare for retirement, but pensions secretary Esther McVey hinted in the summer that the project could be shelved.
However, the Budget documents said that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) “will consult later this year on the detailed design for pensions dashboards, and on how an industry-led approach could harness innovation while protecting consumers”.
Noting that the wording of the statement indicated a plan for multiple dashboards, Royal London pension director Steve Webb, who also served as a pensions minister under David Cameron, said the announcement that the DWP is committing an additional £5 million for the project in 2019/20 is “a welcome symbol of the fact that the Government is committed to taking this agenda forward, albeit more slowly than we would have wished”.
The news was also welcomed by Aegon pensions head Kate Smith. “With so many pension pots disappearing into the potholes of working life, we’re pinning our hopes on the pensions dashboard to solve the issue of lost pension pots,” she said.
Meanwhile, Mr Hammond confirmed that the lifetime allowance, which limits the amount that can be built up in a pension without paying tax, will nudge up from £1.03m in the current tax year to £1.055m next year.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel