More Hypocrisy

Professional Pensions magazine is not on my regular reading list - which is perhaps just as well.

But the magazine has highlighted an issue - which for some reason hasn't caught fire more widely - with the mainstream press and media.

The story involves the Labour party saying one thing - then doing another - would you believe.

Apparently, Labour has switched the calculation of its staff pensions - i.e. all the staff directly employed by the Labour party - on to the lower CPI (Consumer Price Index) inflation index.

The significance of the move is that this is exactly what the government has done - in relation to public sector pensions.

Because the government argues CPI is a more realistic measure of inflation - which has the added advantage of saving the government money - public money.

Now the trade unions attacked the government for this move - and went to court to challenge the change - but lost.

But Labour also attacked the government and criticised the switch to CPI - yet behind the scenes Labour HQ has done exactly the same.

Here's an extract of what the Professional Pensions magazine had to say - on the subject.

Labour Party pension scheme switches to CPI

"The Labour Party has switched to using the Consumer Prices Index for uprating its own pension scheme despite repeatedly attacking the government for making the change possible.

The party's financial statement for 2010 revealed £4.2m had been cut from the Labour Superannuation Society's deficit by the decision to use CPI instead of the Retail Prices Index which is generally lower.

This was effective from 31 December 2010, shortly after Labour pensions spokesperson Rachel Reeves slammed the government's move to use CPI as the statutory inflation measure as "changing the rules of the game" (PP Online, 8 December, 2010).

Labour lords were also extremely critical of the legislation and tried to revisit the issue during debates on the Pensions Bill three months later (PP Online, 16 March).

But the party's financial report states: "Following the government's announcement in summer 2010, the inflation index to be used to derive statutory pensions increases has been changed from RPI to CPI.

"Due to a number of differences between the indices... CPI is expected to be less than RPI over the long-term which means that the defined benefit obligation has been reduced."

The unions claim "an inappropriate index has been chosen for an invalid reason" and have labelled the switch as "morally wrong".

The Labour Party did not return calls for comment."

Maybe it's not surprising that the Labour party did not return calls - because there really no answer to the charge that they've behaved - like first class hypocrites.

Less suprising is that the craven Labour-supporting trade unions - have all been as quiet as church mice on the subject.

Britain's union bosses (the Bubs) have lots to say when it suits them - but strangely seem to lose their voices - when the going gets tough.