Monday 16th January 2012
Greedy investment managers are damaging Britain’s pensions industry, according to Bolton South East MP, Yasmin Qureshi.
Information supplied to HM Treasury suggests that £67.2billion a year is taken from the £2.1trillion held in savings and pensions by exploiting hidden fees, with the greatest cost being wages and bonuses for traders and fund managers. In siphoning off the equivalent of 3.2 per cent of savers’ hard-earned cash, hard-hit retirees are sometimes left with less than they paid in. UK funds are in many cases more expensive to invest in than funds in France, Germany and the US. Without reform pension funds management business opportunities for the UK financial services industry could be lost.
Adding her support to a House of Commons Early Day Motion, Yasmin Qureshi urged the Government to take action on pension charges. She said:
“Even percentages that would sound small to most people – like the 3 per cent charged by one in 14 schemes – can eat large amounts off a pension and most savers don’t realise. For example, someone who saved £100 a month for 40 years in one of these expensive pensions would have £118,000 of their savings taken in charges over the course of their working life.
“The Government needs to do more to help the next generation of pensioners and the communities they live in to have a safer, more secure future.”