Quintin Jardine's blog

Somebody please tell me why the Government finds it necessary to make it compulsory for every employer in the country, no matter how small their payroll, to register for  the  Workplace Pension scheme, and make pension provision for everyone, including people who want no part of it.

Could it be because the financial services industry, which benefits directly from the provision and management of pension products, has such a strong hold over our political decision-makers?

I know of a company that employs one person; he has an existing pension plan and doesn’t want another. No matter, time that would otherwise be spent generating profit for the business must be spent on the elaborate process of establishing and registering something that will never be used. To me, that is demonstrably stupid.

When we leave the EU, (the sooner the better as far as I’m concerned)  we will have all the more need to encourage SME’s, not to encase them in ever more burdensome legal scaffolding. We need to provide incentives to employment, rather than the opposite.