Unfair pensions

SIR – Gerry Dickinson (Letters, February 28) discusses the difference between funded and unfunded pension schemes.

In 1997 Gordon Brown chose to tax the investment income of funded schemes – not his own, or that of any civil servant or other employee of the state. It was widely reported at the time that this would lead to the demise of all funded private-sector schemes.

Just a few years later, it was necessary to establish the Pension Protection Fund. To help fund this, a further levy was applied to those schemes that existed, as if to hasten their demise.

What do we have today? According to its 2017 accounts, the Pension Protection Fund has 418 employees with a median salary of £49,000 and unfunded Civil Service pensions – except one, who already has an accrual equal to the lifetime allowance.

What do they do? They “look after” the remains of effectively insolvent funded schemes, covering a quarter of a million people who have had their retirement plans destroyed. In the meantime, pensions inequality continues. Peter Dallow

Warrington, Cheshire