SNP suggest draconian cuts to public sector pensions

Formal documents discovered by the Scottish Conservatives reveal that the SNP Government's official submission to the Hutton enquiry suggested that the UK Government remove pension guarantees to public sector workers.

Under one of the SNP plans, the actual level of pension an employee received would depend entirely on investment returns and with no guarantee.

Under another option, the level of benefits would have been reduced without reducing member contributions. Their submission accepts the need for a rise in retirement age and that their plans should apply to all future pensions.

Scottish Conservative Finance Spokesman, Gavin Brown MSP said:

"The SNP have been grandstanding even more than usual this week. It is therefore staggering to uncover that they suggested numerous options to the Hutton Enquiry that would have left hundreds of thousands of public sector workers considerably worse off than under the UK Government plans.

"It is incredible to read that one of their plans involved moving to defined contribution schemes which they promoted on the grounds that the risk of uncertainty over the value of the final pension lies entirely with the employee.

"This is the submission the SNP probably wanted to keep quiet because it exposes the naked opportunism of their mock anger over the last few days. The truth is they wanted Scotland's public sector employees to get even less when they retired, and carry all the risk."

The submission came from a body called the Scottish Public Pensions Agency which is noted as 'an agency of the Scottish Government' and the responsible Minister is John Swinney.

The document can be found at the link below, with the options at pages 1 and 2 of Annex C.

http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/d/hutton_responses_t_w.pdf

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