DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Beware the pitfalls of pensions reform

In many respects, the Chancellor’s boldness in putting some welly behind reforming Britain’s moribund pensions market is a good thing.

By merging a sprawl of small local authority and defined benefit schemes into a handful of ‘megafunds’, Rachel Reeves hopes to unleash pension power.

She says change is needed to unlock £80billion of new investment in UK infrastructure and cutting-edge industries.

This, it’s claimed, would boost growth and – ultimately – secure better returns for retirees.

Nevertheless, her shake-up is fraught with complications. For a start, efforts to dismantle smaller funds will face legal obstacles.

Then, there is no requirement for newly created megafunds to invest a single penny in UK firms or projects.

Even if there was, that would clash with a fund’s obligation to search global markets to get the best possible outcome for the saver.

Finally, if investments by megafunds happen to go belly up, the hard-pressed taxpayer would surely be on the hook.

Ms Reeves is to be congratulated for easing post-crash rules in a bid to get Britain’s sluggish pensions sector moving.

But she must tread carefully. After Gordon Brown, we know the danger of Labour chancellors meddling with pension pots.

Control our borders

One of the biggest issues for ordinary people is one that most of our political elite want to brush under the carpet: Britain’s intensifying immigration crisis.

Almost every day brings fresh evidence that the vast migration numbers are profoundly changing the face of the country.

Figures published in recent days have been jaw-dropping. Almost a third of babies born here in 2023 had foreign mothers. One-fifth of workers were from overseas.

Now we learn Britain saw the biggest immigration surge of any wealthy nation last year – up a staggering 53 per cent to nearly 750,000, according to the OECD.

Influxes on such a colossal scale place huge pressure on public services, make everyone poorer and undermine social cohesion. This is a damning indictment of 14 years of Tory failure on immigration. But Labour has shown little interest in shoring up our borders.

The public is saying increasingly loudly that it wants proper, enforced controls of the sort we believed we were getting from Brexit. If the main parties won’t deliver that, voters will turn to one that will.

Clobbering workers

Addressing City grandees last night, the Chancellor made clear her determination to improve the economy.

Yet each day, the damaging consequences of Ms Reeves’s hike in employers’ National Insurance contributions become ever clearer.

Businesses, farms, charities, hospices, GP surgeries, even the police… all will struggle.

The very ‘working people’ she pledged to protect will be hit as a result of lower pay, higher prices, fewer jobs or poorer services.

Ms Reeves may honestly have believed her Budget would clobber only large employers.

But all Chancellors should know: Where there’s a tax, it is always individuals who pay.

WITH Labour in power, Whitehall civil servants must have thought they were pushing at an open door by demanding a four-day week. Unfortunately for these slothful pen-pushers, they hadn’t reckoned with pensions minister Emma Reynolds. Rejecting their demand, she blasted: ‘We’re not living in the 1970s.’ A minister not in thrall to socialist workers? Wonders will never cease.