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A Liberal Democrat Response to the 2007 Budget
 By
Julia Goldsworthy MP
This year’s budget reveals that Gordon Brown is as
anxious as the current Prime Minister to create a legacy
before leaving his current post. It’s important to
give credit where it is due—part of that legacy will
be a strong record of economic growth and stability over
the past decade. Making the Bank of England independent—one
of his first actions as Chancellor back in 1997, and originally
a Liberal Democrat policy—was critical to achieving
this. But this will not be the only record by which he is
judged...
Full article
Pensions reform: Why competition must prevail
 By
Steve Folkard,
Head of Pensions and Savings Policy, AXA
All of you reading this will be very familiar with the many
arguments that have been put forward for and against the different
methods of delivering personal accounts. Delivery, that is,
to the millions of people who do not have access to employer
schemes, on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of small employers
who have never been persuaded to establish schemes for their
staff. I do not propose to revisit those arguments here but
rather to consider what risks may be posed by the current white
paper proposals and why a rethink may still be needed...
Full article
The Democratisation of Financial Products:
What a Gordon Brown government might mean
 A
Gordon Brown government will mean lots of change and it will
pose some interesting opportunities for financial services.
The Chancellor's tenure at Number 11 has produced a new financial
regulator, new savings vehicles, the naming and shaming of
providers, price capping, a new pensions settlement, to name
but a few initiatives...
Full article
Promoting protection: A political push
 The
recent launch of Cover's Promoting Protection campaign
has been widely welcomed, not just by the industry but further
afield. The decision by the All Party Parliamentary Group
on Insurance and Financial Services to hold an evidence session
with campaign members is testament to the wider concerns
felt in Parliament, and elsewhere, that the protection market
needs to do more to raise its profile if it is to close the
gap between the level of protection insurance Britons currently
have in place, and what they actually need...
Full article
The Feeling’s Mutual:
MPs turn out to extol the benefits of mutuality
 Bournemouth
is a town that people associate with all sorts of things:
retired people, the beach, conferences and stag nights. But
what many people don’t associate with this town of
163,000 is financial services. Some of Britain’s best
known financial services firms from Abbey Life to Standard
Life have large offices perched just a few minutes away from
the seven miles of Bournemouth Bay’s golden sands...
Full article
Equality in the workplace: is there light at the end of the tunnel?
 Earlier
this month the Equalities Review delivered some fairly disturbing
findings on the levels of extant prejudice and discrimination
in the UK. It was not so much the current situation but the
estimates of future trends that made for particularly uncomfortable
reading. At present rates Britain will elect a representative
House of Commons in 2080, the gender pay gap will close in
2085 and the ethnic employment gap will remain until 2105...
Full article
Registering Lobbyists in Brussels:
Shedding light on the Insiders’ Town
 The
role of lobbyists in the EU has long been a sticky subject.
The multitude of business and political cultures throughout
the Union ensures that attitudes to the trade differ widely
across Member States, and for the most part they are seen
as epitomising the well-publicised image of Brussels as an ‘insider’s
town’ or ‘secret garden’...
Full article |
