Who said you could go early?

1st April 2005, 1:00am

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Who said you could go early?

https://www.tes.com/magazine/archive/who-said-you-could-go-early
“It’s no go the Government grants, it’s no go the elections, Sit on your arse for 50 years and hang your hat on a pension.”

Louis MacNeice, Bagpipe Music

It is not only poets in search of a rhyme who see the link between elections and pensions. The public sector unions recognised that their best chance of getting the Government to talk about the apparently “non-negotiable” pensions reforms was by threatening mayhem in the run-up to a general election.

A Labour leadership that has placed so much emphasis on “social partnership” could not countenance a strike by 1.5 million public sector employees so close to the polls. But any celebrations at the Easter teacher union conferences would be premature. Teachers are to be included in the “fresh start” negotiations over the Government’s plans to raise the public sector pension age from 60 to 65 even though they did nothing more than make some bellicose noises. However, it remains to be seen how much further the Government will be prepared to go to meet the unions’ demands.

Ministers must know that the pensions reforms have not been handled adroitly. The Government’s claim that it was “modernising” teachers’

pensions was particularly misjudged. One teacher leader summed up the views of many in the profession when she described the reforms as “Victorianisation, not modernisation”.

Nevertheless, the Government remains determined on reform. Teachers, like everyone else, are living to a greater age and are therefore drawing pensions longer. The fact that MPs have no plans to reform their own feather-bedded scheme, is an interesting debating point - but nothing more.

The reality is that the Government will not be deflected. The most likely outcome is that the switch to 65 will be phased in over a longer period.

So if you are still determined to go early, start saving.

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