Letters: Pensions

Final salary pension schemes were in trouble without Brown

Sir: The CBI and the actuarial profession are being disingenuous in going back to what may or may not have happened in 1997. In fact final salary schemes were collapsing long before Brown tried to establish a "level playing field" for investments.

Related articles

• Brown accused of caving in to France on rebate
• Hamish McRae: The charge against Brown is inflexibility
• Search the news archive for more stories

The final salary scheme system was devised for a mythical age when someone would join British Leyland, stay with them for life and retire. In fact, even if a company did survive, over 80 per cent of those who joined a company would have left before they reached retirement age.

This gave rich pickings to the actuaries, who were supposed to calculate the transfer value of the pension for the new employer or the deferred value of the pension at retirement age. Every time an employee changed company, there were "handling charges". The remit of the actuary is to be fair to the fund the employee is leaving and to be fair to the fund the employee is joining. It does not require an A level in mathematics to see it is the employee that gets the fuzzy end of the lollipop.

Go down any prosperous suburban street and ask retired people what pensions they are receiving. You will find a labyrinth of Byzantine administrative complexity. What you will not find is any very clear correlation between the amount of money paid by the pensioner in contributions and their "final salary" pension. Only a minority of those in a final salary scheme have really benefited and those benefited to some extent on the losses of those who left the scheme.

The CBI talks about the ruin of the best private pension system in Europe without ever mentioning that the state system is one of the worst. Many countries in Europe have gone for a risk-spreading policy. The state system is better so the company-based schemes can reasonably be defined-contributions schemes, which are administratively fairer and cheaper to run; and some effort goes into encouraging a "third pillar", private saving, on the basis that this gives an additional choice to the citizen of spending now or saving for later. In many European countries there is a good deal of prudent saving.

A J CASTON

TERVUREN, BELGIUM

Holiday flights to Doomsday

Sir: Your article "Britons unwilling to change despite climate threat" (2 April), reporting the results of a survey by the Energy Saving Trust, filled me with depression, resignation, and not a little anger.

What kind of people are they who refuse to contemplate denying themselves holiday flights abroad and plasma televisions or even turning off the tap when cleaning their teeth when it is almost universally accepted that this behaviour needlessly depletes resources and damages the environment? The same people would behave selflessly to help relatives and friends in distress but they are bafflingly unable or unwilling to view the health of the planet in the same way.

The Government will not take the radical steps required to avoid or delay doomsday, because it believes, probably rightly, that it would not have public support. The human race is going to hit the buffers at a prodigious speed. The planet will survive; the human population will be decimated. For those remaining the lesson will be a cruel one. And who knows? Perhaps a wiser, less profligate, more respectful race will emerge.

RUPERT BULLOCK

SHAPWICK, SOMERSET

Sir: How encouraging to see that whilst the British public is politely giving lip service to climate change hysteria they are sensibly deciding not to put themselves out because of it.

Many of us have experienced previous similar crazes, about the world getting colder, or running out of food. But even younger people need only look at the ragbag of climate change peddlers - tax collectors, self-interest groups, the Prime Minister who warned that Saddam Hussein could wipe us out in 45 minutes (or was it seconds?), and the Leader of the Opposition who would say anything at all for a headline - to know that this is not to be taken seriously.

As for the IPCC, you would hardly expect a climate change panel to say there was no climate change (although they do have the grace to admit it is only "probable") any more than you would expect the Church to say there was no God (although some bishops do come close).

In the real world, anyone with an ounce of sense knows that climate varies from year to year and that mightier forces than a few Chelsea tractors are responsible. If we really are going to fry tomorrow - as the doom mongers gleefully forecast - let's be happy today.

MICHAEL TYCE

WATERSTOCK, OXFORDSHIRE

Sir: You argue that there is much that individuals can do to reduce carbon emissions, and the Government should encourage this (leading article, 2 April). A good place to start would be carelessness about the heating of homes and the buildings people work in.

Most of my friends think nothing of leaving windows and outside doors open in spaces which are being heated. Many seem not to realise that, where there are thermostatic controls, this not only cools the space but results in increased energy consumption. When rooms seem too hot, windows are opened instead of turning the heating down or off. Most people think that energy is saved by keeping empty spaces warm when they are not occupied.

Business's use of heating should be regulated by law. The majority of shops and cafés now keep their front doors open throughout the winter. It is astonishing that this is legal, given the regulations on the insulation of buildings. I have been told by managers that unless they do this, people will think that they are shut and go elsewhere. This market failure is a classic candidate for statutory regulation, which would harm no business.

JAMIE GOUGH

NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE

Sir: I received my PhD from Imperial College in 1993. The title of my thesis? "Factors affecting the relationship between passive expressions of environmental concerns and related actions".

Back in 1993, when it appeared as if the environment had moved from the margins to the mainstream of politics and public concerns (seem familiar?), my findings included "that people's perceptions of who is responsible for solving environmental problems are very important in terms of the translation of passive attitudes into active behaviour ... the more a person sees their own behaviour as connected to environmental problems the greater their behaviour will correspond with their passive concerns."

Also "that knowledge of an environmental concept, rather than a specific issue or fact", such as understanding what sustainability meant as a concept, was positively related to pro-environmental behaviour. Such core understanding gave people a framework against which to continually evaluate their behaviour and choices. A bit like having a religious faith.

I found that for genuine shifts in lifestyles to happen there was actually something more metaphysical needed than the provision of opportunities to choose the green option. People needed not only to understand but to feel their personal responsibility for environmental problems.

DR GWENDOLYN BRANDON

BRIGHTON

Cut packaging with a German Easter

Sir: The problem with Easter eggs ("The great Easter packaging eggstravaganza", 31 March) is not just the degree of over-packaging, but people's reluctance to use consumer power because they feel that buying these ostentatiously wrapped gifts is the done thing at Easter.

I grew up in Germany, and my childhood memories of Easter do not involve any over-sized portions of over-packaged chocolate egg monoliths; we children were treated to a colourful and yummy variety of much smaller eggs, each one wrapped in a single layer of foil. They were sold in small nets and arranged by our parents in pretty little nests, hidden around the flat or garden for a proper egg hunt.

There is little mileage in calling on producers to reduce packaging on the large British Easter eggs - most ways of ensuring that these giant hollow treats don't get broken in transit will involve large plastic moulds and cardboard trays. Much better to boycott these over-packaged goods and choose smaller, more modestly packaged eggs, which are also much easier to hide.

DR DENNIS NIGBUR

RESEARCH FELLOW IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX, BRIGHTON

Modest Brussels bureaucracy

Sir: Marc Glendening is talking through his hat in when he mentions the "over-centralised structures of the EU" (Letters, 27 March). The EU can only legislate with the approval of the ministers from its member states in the Council and any legislation requires well over a two-thirds majority of their votes to be adopted - hardly a structure in which power is centralised.

The central administration itself (the Commission) has a smaller staff than Leeds City Council or the BBC. The commissioners are nominated by the member states.

The proposed constitutional treaty will not increase the areas with EU competence - the key political issues such as health, education, pensions and taxation will still be legislated on by national parliaments.

PAUL BLANCHARD

YORK

The harm created by the drug laws

Sir: What's to be done? ("Tobacco and alcohol more dangerous than LSD", 23 March.) Drugs are put into categories that are meant to reflect their dangers and assess the punishments for drug offences. Twelve years ago, our son was given a prison sentence for taking his turn to get ecstasy and cannabis for his shared house of adult university students. If a drug is classified as class A, there is a mandatory prison sentence for intent to supply, even if you tell the truth straight away and it is a first offence. It still happens now.

Logically, if alcohol is more dangerous than ecstasy, and tobacco is more dangerous than cannabis, we should be covering Britain with prisons to restrain all our smokers and drinkers. What sentences would be meted out to publicans and wine merchants, plying their evil trade? Fourteen years-to-life would be about the right mark, using the current system.

We could, of course, do the sensible thing and bring the supply of all dangerous substances under reasonable legal control. We could try to minimise drug use by education, and help those who have a problem with any kind of addiction. We have enough proof now to know that increased punishment is doing nothing to stop drug use. We could spend all the money wasted on the criminal justice system to reduce the harm caused by drugs. Until we do this, for most young people, the drug laws are more dangerous and harmful than the drugs they enjoy using.

HOPE HUMPHREYS

TAUNTON, SOMERSET

Failure to deter Iran

Sir: Can we not use our Trident missiles to intimidate Iran into releasing the Royal Navy personnel they are holding? The weapons are designed to deter attacks upon us. After all, we have spent billions on these weapons in the past and are set to spent tens of billions in the future; we should get some value for money. If we can't use them to frighten an enemy regime when we need to then they are not fit for purpose.

DAVID SMITH

BEDFORD

Sir: Why are Mr Blair and Mrs Beckett getting so agitated about the British service personnel detained in Iran? They've only been held for two weeks. If in similar circumstances some Iranians had been apprehended in British territorial waters this government would have no qualms in locking them up for three months before deciding what to do next, whether they were eventually innocent or not.

CHRISTOPHER ANTON

BIRMINGHAM

Flood of icons

Sir: Putting aside the original understanding of the word "icon" as a religious image, it can also mean an object of "uncritical devotion". The latter surely typifies the constant and meaningless repetition of the word we hear throughout the day from the media in its various forms. Perhaps they might take the time to consult a dictionary of synonyms and widen their vocabulary.

PETER BRYAN

PONTAC, JERSEY

Wasting his time

Sir: I find it rather disturbing that Buckingham Palace tried to dissuade David Cameron from "wasting his time in politics" as revealed by Alistair Cooke's letter (2 April). Was that because (a) they did not feel that David Cameron had sufficient ability to progress in politics; or (b) they recognised David Cameron's potential as a future PM but felt that the job was beneath him?

LITA ROBERTS

GREAT DUNMOW, ESSEX

Palestinian rights

Sir: Jack de Lowe gives the game away when he says "everyone knows what would happen to an Israeli Jew if he/she were to do the same in PA-administered areas" - that is, be high-profile consumers, travel with equal rights on public transport, etc (letter, 3 April). He forgets that Israeli Jews living in PA areas are largely settlers who believe that all Palestinian land is theirs. Those Israeli Jews don't want to share a conference table, let alone a bus seat or medical facilities.

DAVID KUHRT

FOREST ROW, EAST SUSSEX

Sign of peace

Sir: Elizabeth Brandow (letter, 2 April) suggests that Bardolph was hanged for stealing a "pyx", intimating that "pax" was a misprint. It was the custom in the medieval mass for priest and people to exchange a sign of peace (pax) by the ceremony known as "kissing the Pax" - a tablet of wood, metal or glass was handed round. This is represented in modern liturgies by shaking hands. No doubt this pax was an object "of but little price" compared with the sacred vessels such as the pyx used to hold the consecrated elements.

ARTHUR MAYSON

MIDHURST, WEST SUSSEX

No smoking, almost

Sir: I have a "No Smoking" sign which I cherish. I bought it from Roy, my local barber, while having a haircut. It had hung on the wall since Eric owned the shop in the Seventies. It is plainly printed, mounted in a pale blue picture frame, and reads: "In the interests of public health please refrain from smoking as much as possible." As a 50-a-day man I always smoke as much as possible - except when I am having a haircut.

BINKIE BRAITHWAITE

TROWBRIDGE, WILTSHIRE