The Chancellor continues to occupy the headlines three weeks after her first Budget.
Last week she announced plans to create pension “megafunds” aimed at powering growth in the economy.
Today one of our readers outlines his concerns.
Alan Fitzpatrick of Dunlop writes:
"It seems to me that Chancellor Reeves' pension plan amounts in effect to nationalising those individual local authority pension funds she intends to merge. Their investment strategy is to be taken under government control and directed into different areas which in her wisdom she believes (hopes?) will stimulate growth.
As this investment redirection will affect the captive memberships of those individual funds, should she not have to seek their prior approval before embarking on this venture? It cannot be entirely free from risk as we are warned repeatedly by funds seeking our investment that 'shares can go down as well as up'.
If, as I expect, her pension plan was not a commitment in the recent Labour election manifesto, she cannot claim a mandate for it. Without any consultation with those interested and affected by it her authority for implementing it rests therefore simply on the Labour majority in Westminster. On the same 'authority', what’s to stop her choosing to nationalise other pension funds, including the recently announced £31 billion lying with pension providers in unclaimed personal pension pots?"
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