Powerless to stop private-sector pension caps

SIR – Ben Wilkinson (Money, June 4) highlights the benefits of inflationlinked pension schemes. I, along with 21,000 others, am a member of such a scheme managed by Smiths Group.

However, unlike the Treasury, Smiths has arbitrarily capped this year’s increase at 5 per cent. This is despite the scheme being 108 per cent funded with a £177million surplus and the company taking a pension contributions “holiday” worth £12million a year. A sad case of putting profit before pensions, which, as private-sector pensioners, we are powerless to stop.

Mike Bridgman

Cheltenham, Gloucestershire