Unacceptable breach of faith - Pension betrayal on the cards?

There can be few phrases in the political lexicon that provoke as much disbelief and cynicism as “temporary levy”.

That cynicism, it seems, is about to be justified yet again if suggestions that the private sector pension levy is to be made permanent, albeit at a lower rate of 0.15% rather than the current 0.6%, prove to be true. If that proves to be the case when Budget 2015 is announced then the Government will be guilty of a profound breach of faith.

The initial levy, a raid on private pension savings with no comparable imposition in the public sector, was tolerable because we were told it was temporary and the country was in dire straits but, as is so often the case, it proved so very lucrative that Government could not resist making it permanent.