If Prince Harry really does want to stamp out ‘disinformation’ he ought to have a look at what’s going up in Scotland. Two of the SNP’s leading lights have claimed in recent weeks that Scottish pensions would be guaranteed in a post-Scexit nation, despite both the UK government and independent pension experts pointing out the opposite. And now the nationalist-in-chief, the great- greivance-merchant herself Nicola Sturgeon has decided to throw her weight behind the claim.
In an interview last night with ITV’s Representing Borders programme, the First Minister said that, while she accepts ‘on an ongoing basis it will be for the Scottish government to fund Scottish pensions’ – a tacit rebuke to Ian Blackford’s claims to the contrary – she believes that ‘historic assets and liabilities’ will be a ‘matter for negotiation.’ Unfortunately, there are no historic assets and liabilities in the pensions system; the state pension is not some great historic pot but rather paid from current taxation.
Sturgeon claims such a negotiation would take account of ‘the historical position in terms of National Insurance contributions, paid by Scots.’ But the truth is that there is no collective National Insurance ‘fund’: it’s effectively a convenient government myth to raise taxes by the back door. There is no legal claim on an NI fund, with no-one paying in and nothing to pay into. Is Sturgeon trying to deliberately conflate pensions with other assets and liabilities to try to trick the electorate? Or is she herself unaware about how the state pension system actually operates? Mr S isn’t sure which is worse to be honest.
One thing’s for certain, should it ever come to a negotiation, the topic of pensions will be a short one, at that.
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