Standard Life calls on gov't to link property to pensions

it seems to me that there would be little disadvantage in allowing a SIPP to contain 1 residential property.....

in doing this the property market would be stimulated with some additional liquidity being released into the wider economy.....

by restricting a SIPP to 1 property the vehicle could not be abused simply by existing landlords attaining tax relief by moving their portfolios into pensions.....

Like a big offset One Account?

no not really, i don't think that it should be the clients own private residence as upon crystalisation difficulties would arise

We have so many original ideas was "safe" funds perhaps we should have a fund linked to a bright ideas index!

Let's start from basics. Money coming into NEST has to be invested somewhere. Other than cash no investment has ever stayed the right side of zero consistently, except one. Index Linked Gilts. And it is the Nation underpinning that return.

So why not develop this idea, because the alternative is the nation underpinning poor pensioners, so there is cost either way.

But the last thing we need happening is for the money to disappear into Government coffers, or we would be back with the SERPS fiasco - lots of liability and no assets.

One thing that the country does always need is renewal and development of infrastructure. Roads, rail, telecommunications, ports, power stations, hospitals. At the present time the a large part of the infrastructure is financed by partnerships with private industry at, apparently, a very high cost. A cost that is carried by the nation.

So rather than relying on fund structures that rely on betting on Stockmarket movements, why do we not put NEST pension money to work on providing finance for Infrastructure projects.

Since the nation is underpinning the whole process it would not be impossible to provide return of inflation plus, say, 2%, with additional bonuses if the returns are better than expected - we do have 200 years of experience running With Profit schemes which were a roaring success before the Actuaries become both greedy and careless.

The two core problems would be to ensure that the Government has NO direct access to the funds and that the fund is managed competently and transparently.

This would provide NEST pensioners with a solid, if unexciting, return and a direct stake in the development of the Country that would further underpin the ability of the Nation to provide pensions.

Wouldn't it be nice to know that citizens of the UK had a direct investment in their own country and that they would directly benefit from its success.

And if there was only one fund it really wouldn't matter about small pots, so there would be massive administration saving, because it would be one large NEST pot.

I do worry about the 'visionary' aspect of this - a lot of people already have a number of pots, but it does not appear to have worried Insurance Companies to date. Could it be they have been making a good living out of the charges, which would not be the case with NEST. Do I detect a possible conflict of interest here.

As NEST will not be the only pension arrangement of a large number of people there will still be adequate opportunity for them to continue to participate in Stockmarket betting in the other arrangements. But those whose pension pot will be solely the NEST arrangement will be assured of a decent and safe return.