Alistair Darling

But there will be one big change in government to cope with the challenges of the next few years. Under Blair and Brown, the Treasury has operated as a semi-independent fiefdom, at times at odds with Number 10. No longer. With Alistair Darling and Gordon Brown, you 'll know who's in charge, and they'll both be facing in the same direction.

Pension complaints rise sharply

TPAS, which mediates pension disputes, had 6,821 complaints about pensions in the past year, a 15% increase on the previous 12-month period.

Refund Equitable victims, EU says

BBC NEWS | Business | Refund Equitable victims, EU says

Brown under fire for delay on Equitable

The Conservatives last night accused Gordon Brown of deliberately seeking to delay publication of an independent report into the Equitable Life crisis until after he has left the Treasury.

George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, suggested the Treasury had "deliberately swamped" the parliamentary ombudsman with hundreds of pages of new documents to force a delay in publication of a potentially embarrassing report for the government.

People 'pay less into pensions'

Contributions to pensions have fallen sharply since the rise of "money purchase" schemes, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

In 2006, 40% of members of such schemes saw less than 8% of their salaries being paid in as total contributions.

That compared with a combined 20% contribution rate for members of traditional final-salary schemes.

It was also less than the 8% minimum rate suggested for the government's proposed system of personal accounts.

In 2005, the average company money purchase scheme received total contributions of just 9% of salary.

"This confirms the employer retreat from pension provision," said Nigel Stanley, head of campaigns at the TUC.

" An awful lot of people at work today now face big cuts in ther living standards when they retire, particularly those who are now too old to build up decent savings when personal accounts start in 2012."

Equitable Life a UK Scandal

A European Parliament committee probing the scandal of insurer Equitable Life has urged Britain to compensate policyholders who lost savings.

The committee's damning report says the UK government bears responsibility, because it did not comply with EU law that would have protected them.

Equitable Life slashed policyholders' savings or pensions when it nearly collapsed in 2000.

More than a million were hit in the UK, 8,000 in Ireland and 4,000 in Germany.

The MEPs criticise the UK Financial Ombudsman Service for "serious shortcomings" in its operation.

They also condemn UK ministers and regulators who failed to give evidence.

"If you were Irish or Dutch or German or had bought a policy outside the UK you had no-one you could go to," said British MEP Sir Robert Atkins.

Authorities outside the UK said it was a matter for the UK regulator, he said, but the UK regulator was not interested in people calling from abroad.

British MEP Diana Wallis, who drafted the report, said the saga showed that the European Commission needed to do more to ensure that EU directives were properly implemented.

Labour members of the committee tried but failed to water down the criticism of the UK government.

There is no further opportunity to amend the report, though it can still be rejected by the full parliament in June.

Brown facing no-confidence debate

The Conservatives are set to call for a vote of no confidence in Chancellor Gordon Brown over his 1997 decision to scrap tax relief on pension funds.

Brown defends pensions decision

BBC NEWS | Politics | Brown defends pensions decision

Mr Brown said the change, which raised £5bn a year from pension funds, had been a key one to ensure the UK economy had been strong for the past decade.

So pensions savings were sacrificed to ensure a strong economy? Can this be right? Am I going mad?

Row grows over Brown's 'pensions raid' |

Row grows over Brown's 'pensions raid'. Claims that Mr Brown wanted, before his 1997 budget, to raise £8bn every year but was forced to settle for £5bn.

So that's only £50 billion out of pension funds so far...and counting.

That Pension Raid

Had the chancellor, back in his 1997 Budget, given a straight and open explanation of the extent of the tax rise, the risks attached to it, the advice he had about how much more we would need to put into pensions, about how small the positive effect on investment would be... then the delayed anger now erupting might have been rather diminished.

Tories call for pensions inquiry

The Conservatives said Gordon Brown had shown contempt for pensioners.

Brown's Legacy

Since 1997, when the UK had the best occupational pensions in the world, Gordon Brown, Mr. Gordon Brown, has well, how does anyone describe what Mr. Gordon Brown, Mr. Gordon Brown, has done? Well, Mr. Gordon Brown, please describe what you have done, and why. Why? If you cannot, why can't you?

Government's £160m pension saving

Gordon Brown will pay millions less into our pension schemes after tax changes in 2008.Instead of boosting every £100 we save by another £28.20, from 2008 the chancellor will only contribute £25 - saving him £3.20.

Moving home 'costs nearly £9,500'

While estate agents' charges of £3,027 have risen roughly in line with house prices, stamp duty has shot up from an average of £543 to £5,009.

Legal fees are put at £1,000 while removal costs are now £450 on average.

Back in 1996 stamp duty was levied at just 1% on properties sold for more than £60,000.

Many buyers, including most first-time ones, escaped paying the tax at all as the average house in the UK cost just £64,441, according to the Halifax bank's house price index.

Since then higher rates of duty have been introduced.

Properties worth over £250,000 are taxed at 3% and those over £500,000 at 4%.

With the average house price now standing at more than £200,000, the vast majority of homes in the UK attract the tax when they are bought, even though the 1% stamp duty charge now kicks in only once the house is worth £125,000.

Brown's pension raid 'cost savers £100bn' | This is Money

For the first time, the devastating impact of the Chancellor's controversial tax grab in 1997 has been revealed.

He scrapped the tax relief on dividends paid into pension funds just a few weeks after Labour came to power. Shadow Home Secretary David Davis has described the move as one of the 'great scandals of the last decade'.

List of Brown's stealth taxes

The Conservatives claimed yesterday that Gordon Brown had hidden no fewer than 40 new "stealth taxes" in his Budget this week.

Stealth tax

Stealth Tax is a term used for a tax levied in such a way that is largely unnoticed, or not recognized as a tax.[1] Generally used in the UK by Conservatives to attack the New Labour government's policies. The phrase Stealth Tax should not be confused with double taxation or Privatization.

Ten years of growing stealthy taxation

Government figures show we paid £115bn in tax and national insurance in 1996-97, while this tax year, 2006-07, the Revenue expects to collect more than double that, at £234bn an increase of £119bn.
But new research ahead of Mr Brown's 11th Budget shows how savers have suffered more than most. Few people understood what Mr Brown was doing when he stripped pension funds of their tax-free status in his very first Budget in 1997, but the effects are plain to see in the table on this page. A typical private sector pension saver retiring today now gets less than a quarter of the retirement income they would have received if they retired before Mr Brown became Chancellor.

When will you be able to retire?