Herald on Sunday letters: what readers are talking about this week

My late father was a teacher between 1935 and 1975, and one of his regular complaints was that every year the Treasury took the surplus from the teachers’ pension fund to which he contributed. My mother, at one time also a teacher, spoke of many former colleagues who had contributed over their 40 years service, retired at 65 and within three or four years had died, so contributing to the financial health of the pension scheme if not their own.

I wonder if either gentleman would care to consider what the situation would be for the teachers’ pension fund, had these excess contributions (basically the “annual profit”) had been retained (even as government bonds)? As a comparison California State Teachers' Retirement System is the eleventh largest public pension fund in the world, with a portfolio worth $238 billion.

It is fair to say public sector pensions have not consistently been in surplus in recent years, leading to the sort of complaints made by Mr Cross and Mr Anderson. It is though no less fair to say that the situation of private sector pension funds was considerably weakened by “over funding” of schemes during the 1990s in particular, leading to raids by a succession of Chancellors including Nigel Lawson and Gordon Brown, as employers took “contribution holidays” and in some cases withdrew some or all of the surplus.

Of course, the surging stock market, which had supported the notion the estimate of schemes being overfunded, eventually went into decline, causing “black holes” in pension schemes, which changes to accounting rules required to be recognised in company balance sheets, so alarming shareholders. However, such “black holes” more often than not are notional, since while the fund may not at the time be able to pay out on all of its liabilities, these will not all be paid out on a single day, but over anything up to 30 or 40 years.

The consequence has been that private sector firms have had a significant motivation to withdraw from defined benefits pensions and instead offer defined contribution schemes which transfer risk from the employer to the employee instead. Is this a good thing? No, of course it isn’t, but is encouraging the levelling down of others to the same unacceptable schemes for old age any more acceptable?

Moreover, many public sector pension schemes have been “reformed” due to shortfalls, with higher contributions and less advantageous benefits which are harder to access, ignoring the many earlier years of surplus. Heads they win, tails we don’t?

Alasdair Galloway

Dumbarton

• In your letters pages on April 12, Clark Cross and Dave Anderson have familiar goes at what they stigmatise as gold-plated public sector pensions. People less concerned to stigmatise them might regard them as decent pensions setting the standard to which all work pensions should aspire.

“It’s simply a matter of fundamental unfairness,” complains Dave Anderson – though it’s noticeable that his remedy for the unfairness appears to be to drag decent pensions down to the worse levels that tend to obtain in the private sector.

“Business could not afford the cost of final salary schemes,” declares Clark Cross. If that is really true, it’s a very good reason to rethink the relationship between private enterprise and the economic life of the country.

Paul Brownsey

Bearsden

• Readers Clark Cross and Dave Anderson have again taken issue with my views on public sector pensions.

I challenged both readers to define a “gold plated pension”. Mr Anderson seems to think it is one which is paid for by the taxpayer. Mr Cross believes it is one which provides a “secure, index-linked income for life”. Surely this is what we all have a right to expect from any pension scheme.

I am aware that the private sector claim they can’t afford to support better pensions. However, this is what they said about redundancy payments and the minimum wage. The private sector does have a habit of ‘crying wolf’.

As I said in my original letter, let’s level up and not down. The private sector can afford it.

Douglas Morton

Lanark

Blame for lockdown lapses

The Governments of Scotland and the rest of the UK are partly to blame for some of the apparent lack in some areas of social distancing and not leaving home unless really necessary. This has not been helped by those "who should have known better" openly breaking the rules, in particular one who was on TV providing us with Government guidance.

At the start of the epidemic taking hold in the UK, far too much was made of a possible three-week lockdown, which kept being amended as time passed, and there was also too much discussion over the timings of peaks/levelling off, and how we would be able to control them. Did none of the supposed experts realise, after all that had gone on before in other countries, that the virus had a mind of its own and would run its own course unless the population made every effort to nip it in the bud?

From observations in my own area and from news reports from other parts of the country the three-week lockdown mindset had a hold in a sizeable part of the populace with some starting to back-slide even after the second week. Some even assumed that Easter would be the natural cessation of hostilities – how wrong they were.

George Dale

Beith

A question of finances

I agree with David Campbell's letter recommending a drastic approach on obesity (The Herald, April 9). Dealing with obesity "eats up" around £700m of NHS Scotland's £13bn annual budget.

This is around three times Scotland's annual share of Trident, the scrapping of which Mr Robins (The Herald on Sunday, April 12) recommends in a post-Corona world.

A combination of savings from preventive health and health-specific taxes would surely give Mr Robins the extra capacity he wants.

He is right that the cost of housing as a percentage of take-home pay is reaching criminal levels. It can only be solved with cross-party agreement to build good, cheap public housing in well-planned, accessible neighbourhoods.

Quite how the country could afford to give everyone £2,500 a month I have no idea. Most other benefits would have to be scrapped first

Allan Sutherland

Stonehaven

£64k? Try the £10k question

Hello Ron, just read your page today (The Diary, April 12). In the paragraph entitled “The £64k question", you forgot to mention that on top of their salaries, MPs have awarded themselves £10,000 extra to cope with having to work from home. I wonder how long they’re having to wait for that ...

Anne Shackleton

Kirkcudbright

Still no excuse for dogs out of control

The Scottish SPCA has urged people to keep their dogs under control since cases of sheep worrying and wild animals such as deer being savaged or killed have increased. Seemingly more people are exercising their dogs using rural routes during the coronavirus pandemic.

Every dog owner claims his pet is under control off the lead but this is a fallacy as can be seen from the number of children being seriously injured and disfigured as well as adults. Pet owners should be reminded that farmers are legally entitled to shoot a dog which is attacking their livestock.

Appealing to the dog owners' conscience is a waste of time. Legislation should be introduced that dogs should be on the lead at all times. This would also stop the excuse when fouling occurs and is left – "It wisnae my dog".

Clark Cross

Linlithgow