Received from: PCS
Congress condemns the government for ripping up the pensions cost-sharing agreement for public sector schemes and for treating the cost of the McCloud/Sargeant remedy as a member cost, ensuring that the bill has to be met entirely by the scheme members.
Congress notes that evidence from the first round of scheme valuations in the public services does not support the claim that future pension costs in the public services are unaffordable, representing a risk to the public finances.
Congress welcomes the legal action being taken forward jointly by unions to challenge these scandalous government actions and calls on the General Council to coordinate union campaigning on public sector pensions.
Congress believes that in a post-pandemic world of work the need to reduce the pension age is more urgent than ever as a means to address the shameful levels of social and health inequality.
The claimed justification for higher pension age is longer life expectancy, but there are great variations in life and disability-free life expectancy. For example, in England people living in the poorest neighbourhoods will, on average, die seven years earlier than people living in the richest neighbourhoods. There is now a slowing down and even an overall decline in life expectancy.
Congress calls on the General Council to launch a campaign for:
i. the immediate honouring of the public sector pension cost-sharing arrangement measures
ii. a reduction in the state pension age, and in the normal pension age for public sector schemes.
Public and Commercial Services Union