DAILY MAIL COMMENT: The perils of yet another Labour pension raid

In Gordon Brown's first Budget as Chancellor in 1997 he announced a raid on pensions that had devastating consequences.

Scrapping the tax relief pension funds received on share dividends set off a chain of events that, over the next two decades, killed off nearly all the generous final salary schemes in the private sector.

Today, those generous 'gold-plated' schemes of old are almost the sole preserve of workers in the public sector.

History may be about to repeat itself. Next week, 27 years on from Mr Brown's colossal mistake, a new Labour Chancellor is once again expected to treat private pensions like a cash cow.

If, as feared, Rachel Reeves orders firms to pay national insurance on the contributions they make to pensions for staff, the impact may be just as crippling.

At a stroke, Ms Reeves will make it vastly more expensive for firms to fund the 'defined contribution' company retirement plans that replaced final salary schemes after 1997.

Bosses will inevitably seek to cover their additional costs by holding back on pay rises to staff, cutting jobs or investment – or, more likely, simply reducing the generosity of the pensions they offer.

Once again, a Labour Chancellor will have dealt a heavy blow to private pensions. Once again, it will leave the nation far poorer in the long-term as our ageing population struggles to save for later life.

The idea is invariably being decried by financial experts and business leaders, who have branded it 'divisive'.

Why divisive? Because, in true Labour fashion, the public sector will be spared any of the pain.

As always, it will be taxpayers who foot the bill.

To put it bluntly: Reeves will with one hand attack the private sector, and with the other ask the subjects of her raid to stump up yet more cash for the bloated public sector.

The result will be a widening gulf between the public and private sector – or, as Labour sees it, between 'us and them'.

Ms Reeves has talked endlessly about Britain's 'broken' finances. So she will be well-aware that public sector pensions are already an unsustainable burden on the taxpayer and ripe for reform.

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Fury over Rachel Reeves' raid on private sector pensions

It's high time we had a Chancellor who grasped the nettle, stood up to the unions and took an axe to the public sector's outdated, and inordinately expensive pensions. Ms Reeves, sadly, doesn't appear up to the task.

Justice incognito

Police firearms officers perform a demanding role and deserve protection from criminal retribution when things go wrong.

If the legality of a fatal police shooting is questioned, the Home Secretary has proposed a 'presumption of anonymity 'for any prosecuted officer until they are convicted.

Yvette Cooper's ultimate goal of allowing police to do their jobs is a commendable one, but her plan raises wider issues about open justice.

It risks mutating the trial process, perhaps only subtly at first.

In time, other defendants – such as those accused of sex crimes – are sure to make similar demands to keep their names out of the public domain.

Ms Cooper has promised a careful review before the law is changed.

Potential damage to Britain's world-leading justice system must be at the forefront of those considerations.