Interview by Stewart Ritchie for Money Marketing TV

Stewart Ritchie, President of the Faculty of Actuaries, has highlighted difficulties with the Government's plans for Personal Accounts in an interview with web-based Money Marketing TV. He faced questions on subjects ranging from the Government's plans for the financial assistance scheme and the decline in final salary schemes to the difficulties of keeping pace with increasing longevity and the Government's plans for Personal (Pension) Accounts.

"I think the Government is doing a lot of things right on pensions policy with its proposals for Personal Accounts, to auto-enrol people who ought to be making private pension provision," said Mr Ritchie. But, he added: "It is important if people are going to be auto-enrolled that they do it with their eyes open to the possibility that they might end up having part of the benefit of that means tested away from them in retirement. If the Government believes that it is in the national interest that people could end up worse off in retirement than if they'd just stuck their money in their pocket and not contributed to a pension ... and that that is a price worth paying, then it needs to come out and say that quite explicitly, so that we don't end up in a situation that we have in effect a mis-selling scandal through auto-enrolment into Personal Accounts."

The full interview can be seen at: http://www.moneymarketing.co.uk/mmtv.html.