The Times - UK (2020-11-26)

2 2GM Thursday November 26 2020 | the times

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Millions of retired people were dealt a blow by the chancellor yesterday as he pressed ahead with changes to the retail prices index (RPI) that will mean a fall in the value of their pension payouts from 2030. Rishi Sunak allowed some breathing room by not introducing the change for 2025, as had been considered by the Treasury. Those with the more generous de- fined benefit workplace pension plans, supported by employers, have their pension payments increased each year in line with RPI, the cost of living baro- meter. In 2013 statisticians said that the measure overstated inflation and have since urged the use of measures based on the consumer prices index, typically about 1 per cent per year lower. The UK Statistics Authority asked

Pension payouts to fall under shake-up

Robert Miller last year to be allowed to recalculate the RPI to fall in line with CPI and addi- tional measures of housing costs. The Treasury said that it would consider bringing in the reform, which would also lower the interest payments made on bonds, which are linked to the RPI, between 2025 and 2030. Mr Sunak said yesterday that an immediate change to the RPI would be too disruptive. “I will be unable to offer my consent to the implementation of such a proposal before the maturity of the final specific index-linked gilt in 2030,” the chancellor said in a letter to the statistics authority. Critics of the RPI have said that the failure to adopt reforms had effectively cost the public billions in extra interest paid on government bonds. Lane, Clark & Peacock, the pensions consultancy, warned that some pension funds would face a deficit, even with the

changes pushed back to 2030. Jonathan Camfield, a partner, said: “The schemes that will suffer the most are those that have invested heavily in index-linked government bonds and have their benefit increases linked to CPI.” Women and the newly retired will be hardest hit by the changes, which were revealed in documents released along- side the spending review but not men- tioned in Mr Sunak’s speech. Over time, the value of their pensions could be thousands of pounds less than they might have expected. An individual aged 65 at present will see their total retirement income drop by 4 or 5 per cent compared with their expectations. The proposed changes do not affect the state pension, which will rise by 2.5 per cent in April, in line with the government’s triple-lock promise. Prices index change will hit pensions, Business, page 39

Johnson backs the campaign

for half of MPs to be women

Ross Kempsell Special Correspondent, Times Radio Boris Johnson appears to have committed the Conservatives to equal gender representation at Westminster. The prime minister suggested it in a two-minute video message to the 50: Parliament campaign, but The Times understands that he is not considering ordering measures such as new quotas in selections for Tory candidates. Mr Johnson said: “The past century has seen women blazing a trail through politics... From the first female MP to the first female minister, prime minister, Speaker of the House of Commons

... and more. But there is one first that
is still long overdue, and that is the
moment when for the first time we
finally achieve 50:50 representation in
our parliament.
“So, on this anniversary of the Quali-
fication of Women Act, the legislation
that first opened the door to women
standing in a general election 102 years
ago, I want to urge women to put them-
selves forward for politics.
“I’m proud that today there are more
women in parliament than ever before.
But if we’re going to achieve 50:50, we
need the biggest ever recruitment drive
of women as candidates, activists and
potential MPs. I passionately believe if

you give men and women the same opportunities, you will solve some of the world’s toughest problems. So to everybody at the 50:50 campaign I wish you the best of luck.” In the past the Conservatives have stopped short of making a commitment on the gender balance in parliament and have avoided using affirmative action such as all-women shortlists. Last year Mr Johnson described women making up half of Conservative candidates, rather than MPs, as an ambition. He said in November: “It is my ambition that half of Conservative candidates on our list for future parliamentary elections are women.” Frances Scott, director of 50:50 Par- liament, said: “To me this feels like a historic moment. We have never before heard a Conservative Party leader pub- licly state their support for fully equal representation of women at Westmin- ster. We want women to have equal seats and an equal say on all policy mat- ters. Our campaign wants to build a better democracy and his support for our mission is a game-changer for British politics. “Now a prime minister has finally acknowledged that our parliament should draw in an equal way upon the widest possible pool of talent and experience, including that of the 32 mil-

lion women living and working in the UK.” The prime minister’s remarks will re- open questions over whether and how the Conservatives will act to bring about equal representation in parliament. Asked whether the party should introduce all-women shortlists, Baroness Jenkin of Kennington, a Tory peer and founder of Women2Win, told Times Radio: “I don’t really know the answer to that. I have always felt as long as we made steady progress, it would be better not to.” In 2018 Brandon Lewis, the party chairman, committed the party to equal representation among its own parliamentary candidates. But the Conservatives declined to introduce all-women shortlists, and have histori- cally opposed them since Labour began to operate them at general elections in 1997. At last year’s general election 30 per cent of Tory candidates were women compared with 53 per cent for Labour. When David Cameron was leader he proposed all-women shortlists but did not impose them. The use of quotas and targets for equal representation is con- troversial among Conservative back- benchers and is a key battle line in so- called culture wars politics.

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TODAY’S EDITION

LETTERS 32 LEADING ARTICLES 33 WORLD 34

BUSINESS 39 REGISTER 54 LAW 58

SPORT 64 CROSSWORD 74 TV & RADIO TIMES

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Plenty of sunshine and most places
will have a dry day, although feeling
chilly. Full forecast, page 62

THE WEATHER

5

7

16

6

9 7 9

7

9

5

Little space left

for bigger cars

Bigger cars mean that
motorists are being left
with as little as 21cm
on either side of a
parking space,
research shows.
Popular models have
grown by as much as
55 per cent since the
1970s. A study put the
annual bill for prangs
at £1.5 billion. Page 4

Older viewers shunning BBC Older viewers are falling out of love with the BBC. The proportion of over-55s with a positive impression of the broadcaster has slipped from 64 per cent to 62 per cent and Britons overall are spending 19 minutes a day less on its services. Page 11

Tier rules to be revealed today London and Liverpool are hopeful of being spared the toughest Tier 3 coronavirus restrictions today but only a handful of rural areas are expected to be placed in Tier 1. A study showed that Tier 1 had failed to cut cases in 168 of 169 areas. Page 12

Football union chief to quit Gordon Taylor is to stand down as head of the Professional Footballers’ Association at the end of the season. Mr Taylor, 75, who has been chief executive since 1981, earns up to £2.3 million a year, making him Britain’s best-paid union official. Page 67

Today’s highlights

Listen for free DAB | Smart speaker | Online at times.radio | Times Radio app

8.40am Anneliese Dodds, the shadow chancellor 1.15pm Mariella Frostrup looks at how 2020 will change our approach to Christmas shopping 2pm The author Philippa Gregory, right, on her latest novel, Dark Tides 8.30pm The Joy Division and New Order drummer Stephen Morris 10.30pm The former Labour MP Mary Creagh and the former Conservative MP Alistair Burt take a first look at tomorrow’s newspapers

Putin ‘girlfriend’

on £7.7m salary

Alina Kabaeva, 37,
a former Olympic
gymnastics champion
who is rumoured to be
in a relationship with
President Putin, was
paid a salary of
785 million roubles
(£7.7 million) to run a
pro-Kremlin media
group, a report has
said. Page 35

Liquidators pursue PR cash Partners of Bell Pottinger have yet to repay £1.8 million in “excess drawings” that they took before the PR business collapsed in 2017 amid a scandal in South Africa, liquidators say. A sum is also being pursued against a partner via litigation. Page 39

llor ill

r latest

continued from page 1 Spending review Analysis

C

harity begins at home. Or more precisely the towns of the Midlands and the north of England that the Conservatives will need to defend to keep power (Francis Elliott writes). This was not the moment in which Rishi Sunak faced up to the realities of the pandemic so much as launched the 2024 election campaign. In a symmetry too neat to be accidental, he moved £4 billion from the overseas aid budget to a new “levelling-up” fund aimed at cementing

Tories into former Red Wall seats. The chancellor did not dwell on the deep and lasting scars of coronavirus. There was no examination of rising debt in the next four years. The return of mass unemployment was at least acknowledged but the £4.3 billion set aside over three years for return-to-work initiatives feels like a small down payment. Instead the chancellor sketched the campaign themes. On public services he insisted the above- inflation one-year spending round

proved there would be no return to austerity, and the government was delivering on the people’s priorities of “new hospitals, better schools and safer streets”. Yet the spending review will be most remembered for completing the Tories’ post-David Cameron realignment with the ditching of the 0.7 per cent foreign aid target. Having abandoned a manifesto pledge on aid, it is surely only a matter of time before Mr Sunak ditches promises not to increase taxes too.

economic think tank, calculated that £12,000 per household had been spent on the coronavirus response. Once the recovery was secure the burden should fall on tax rises rather than spending cuts, it said. Balancing the present budget in 2024-25 would require £27 billion of fiscal consolidation. Torsten Bell, its chief executive, said: “The chancellor has rightly chosen to double down on Covid spending, which is set to total around £335 billion over two years... But the chancellor less noisily began the process of changing his public finances plans for the years ahead, opting to spend up to £13 billion a year less on non-Covid public services than previously planned.” The OBR said that the immediate economic outlook could be worse in the event of a no-deal Brexit. It said that this could reduce GDP by a further 2 per cent next year. Reports and analysis, pages 6- Questions on spending and Brexit remain, leading article, page 33

The Times - UK (2020-11-26)

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