Pickering says history is repeating itself with Turner

The author of the last government-commissioned report into pensions reform accused the Government yesterday of using the same dirty tricks to undermine the forthcoming Turner report as it had employed to derail his own recommendations three years ago.

Alan Pickering, who produced A Simple Way to Better Pensions for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), said he believed the Government had deliberately leaked the contents of the Turner report over the past month in an attempt to sabotage the work of its author, Lord Turner of Ecchinswell.

Mr Pickering said government ministers used identical tactics ahead of its publication in July 2002. The report was subsequently shelved. "Two days before my report was published, it was selectively leaked and it was obvious the leak had come from government sources," Mr Pickering said. "By the time the report was published, I was already busy defending the unpalatable bits that had been leaked."

Like Lord Turner, who will present his report to John Hutton, who has been Secretary of State at the DWP for less than a month, Mr Pickering's work was commissioned by a minister who had moved on. "The parallels between our experiences are close," Mr Pickering said. "Three weeks before my report was due, Alistair Darling was moved from the DWP to transport and replaced by someone who had not been party to the commissioning of the report and who was not up to speed on the brief."

Mr Pickering said he now expected the Government to attempt to reject much of the Turner report. "Adair Turner has been used to buy time for the politicians, in order to maintain the momentum of procrastination," he said.

Last night, there were already signs that business leaders are preparing to criticise parts of the Turner report. "We find it very unhelpful that a report which should receive a fair hearing is undermined before it is even published," John Cridland, the deputy director of the Confederation of British Industry, said. "However, we are concerned about the suggestion Lord Turner plans to recommend compulsory pension contributions from employers."