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The Competitiveness of the UK: How to best meet the challenge?
 Getting
to grips with Gordon Brown’s statements on the economy’s
performance can be a frustrating experience for the uninitiated.
It is often what he doesn’t say that matters...
Full article
Pensions reform full speed ahead
 With
a Bill going through Parliament and debate raging around
a second White Paper, pensions reform is going full speed
ahead. It may seem like years since the Pensions Commission
published its proposals for a national pensions savings scheme,
and there have certainly been many years’ worth of
debate around the subject. In fact, though, it has been just
over a year and the first legislative steps are already being
put in place, with provisions for a Personal Accounts Delivery
Authority being debated in Parliament. What for some may
have seemed like a distant prospect is now looking more and
more like it may actually happen...
Full article
London’s Calling to the Faraway Global Financial
Centres
 Having
worked in and around financial services for some time, I’ve
seen it lurch from crisis to crisis as it seeks to develop
business models which provide confidence to both markets
and consumers, providing adequate return for appropriate
risk. However, recent events have given me cause to think
about the nature of the UK financial services industry from
the global perspective...
Full article
Financial Capability: the Government’s long-term
approach
 On
15 January, the Treasury published its ‘long-term approach’ to
improving financial capability in the UK. To take forward
this agenda the Government has undertaken to move on three
separate actions to this end...
Full article
Passing the buck: Is offsetting a responsible option?
 The
subject of carbon offsetting has received much attention
in the wake of the frenzy of environmental actions announced
following last year’s Stern Review. Politicians in
particular have been keen to demonstrate the extent of their
green credentials and show that their lifestyles, at least,
aren’t harming the environment, by announcing that
they offset their costs...
Full article
A blow to Government on pensions compensation
 It
was something of an incomplete victory. Last week, in the
case Carol Marilyn Robins and Others v Secretary of State
for Work and Pensions, the European Court of Justice ruled
that the UK Government was not obliged to compensate thousands
of workers who had lost their pensions when their employers
went bust...
Full article
The Limits of Consensus:
new procedures first point of
controversy for Pensions Bill Committee
 On
23 January the 17 members of the Pensions Public Bill Committee
met for the first of 12 sessions in the imposing surroundings
of Committee Room XIV. They were there to scrutinise a piece
of legislation that looks towards Britain in 2050, when over-65s
will represent 25 per cent of the population, up from 16
per cent in 2004...
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