Pension?

[MichaelAwkward]

Some Government just needs to get a grip on the deficit and reduce spending elsewhere.
What exactly is the £332bn "Other" spending going on? £100bn on servicing our debt is getting ridiculous.

Cut that Other in half, that would solve the deficit and pension crisis in 1 go, with surplus left over to start paying down the debt, which would free up more money from interest payments each year.

It's not rocket science. Governments are just utterly incompetent.

That's a really bad graph. It doesn't even match the text that it's placed alongside on the OBR website - https://obr.uk/forecasts-in-depth/brief-guides-and-explainers/public-finances/ and there's no data sources listed.

https://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/year_spending_2025UKbn_17bc1n_80#ukgs302 is a good source for data although it looks like it hasn't been updated recently.

You can see what's listed under Other there - stuff like agriculture, waste management, community amenities, recreation and sport, and then you'll also have in there things like accounting adjustments (which is actually most of it on that site). What you could cut in there to spend elsewhere wouldn't even really touch the sides.

Whilst £100bn is a large figure to be spending on debt (didn't Rishi laden us with some interest ladder bonds or something silly before interest rates shot up?) ultimately the government can't function without borrowing money from somebody, and it can't do that for free.

 

[Sho]

I combined all my old pensions with Pensionbee, it's been a few years now but it's actually really good. The interface is simple, the options are great and changing plans is very easy. I just lumped it all on the riskiest option they offer and it's been performing rather well. Drop me a trust if you fancy a referral, I think you get £100 bonus or something.

My current employer's pension is like going back 30 years in time, the interface is hilariously crap. AON Mastertrust. If you want to view other investment plans, they're only *just* above posting you a sheet, you have to download a PDF for each plan and compare them. To log in you end up with 300 tabs because each page opens a new tab and you can't just view stuff, you have to to through a million different pages, portals, logins etc. It does my head in.

I too did this end of last year. Never knew Pensionbee existed. All in one pot.

 

[413x]

There is already a tax free allowance If you leave your house to your children. If IHT does get changed it might make more sense to clamp down on the loopholes to stop the seriously wealthy from dodging it, and introduce a higher tax band. For example keep the current 40% rate for estates up to £2M but increase the rate to 50% on balances above that.

One can dream.
If the world doesn't crack down on the uber rich tax dodging it's just going to get worse. But why would they?

 

[helpimcrap]

I too did this end of last year. Never knew Pensionbee existed. All in one pot.

I'm doing it now but they can't add public pensions.

That's 2 of my pensions I can't touch....

 

[200sols]

Why should that happen? Why does being successful come with so many negatives in this country?

Stuff like that would make me leave the UK.

How many millions do you have?

 

[200sols]

One can dream.
If the world doesn't crack down on the uber rich tax dodging it's just going to get worse. But why would they?

Why? To avoid complete breakdown of society? Thing is without global cooperation it's very hard.

What'll happen is the middle will get relentlessly rinsed as usual, the poor have no assets anyway and the wealthy are mobile so just base themselves in some low tax jurisdiction

 

[PlacidCasual]

Whilst £100bn is a large figure to be spending on debt (didn't Rishi laden us with some interest ladder bonds or something silly before interest rates shot up?) ultimately the government can't function without borrowing money from somebody, and it can't do that for free.

Don't know if it was Sunak but yes we have a very high proprtion of index linked bonds (inflation+%) and they are really beginning to bite. Low growth and high inflation means we can't get from under the debt burden. PFI has been a disaster for the public sector finances too and if Reeves is dim enough to repeat that mistke my grandkids will be paying it off, and my kids aren't yet teenagers.

 

[200sols]

Don't know if it was Sunak but yes we have a very high proprtion of index linked bonds (inflation+%) and they are really beginning to bite. Low growth and high inflation means we can't get from under the debt burden. PFI has been a disaster for the public sector finances too and if Reeves is dim enough to repeat that mistke my grandkids will be paying it off, and my kids aren't yet teenagers.

It's about 24% in linkers for the UK. They are indexed to RPI as well (CPIH from 2030) and that has really been raging over the last few years.

Debt issuance is managed by the DMO so it wasn't a specific PMs policy to issue lots of linkers.

 

[413x]

Why? To avoid complete breakdown of society? Thing is without global cooperation it's very hard.

What'll happen is the middle will get relentlessly rinsed as usual, the poor have no assets anyway and the wealthy are mobile so just base themselves in some low tax jurisdiction

Yeah it won't happen without global Coop. And i can't see that as there are too many wealthy people in power with self interest.

 

[SexyGreyFox]

Being old I take all mine now but a few years ago I rang a Government scheme that apparently have to give you proper advice.
They record it so you can't go back and claim otherwise.
They went through everything and you basically still have to make your own mind up but listening to all the data the best choice was to leave them where they are until you're ready to draw.