The Rev Canon Donald Gray obituary: campaigner for liturgical reform
In fact the noise was emanating from the shoes of the Rev Canon Donald Gray, the chaplain to the Speaker of the House of Commons and otherwise known by MPs as 'Squeaky'. Resplendent in black silk cassock with white gloves, and in keeping with a tradition that dated back to the Restoration in 1660, Gray would lead prayers for five minutes before the rough and tumble began in earnest.
A genial man with an earthy Lancastrian wit, he took in good part his nickname; squeaking aside, he went about his pastoral business quietly having been appointed by the Speaker Bernard Weatherill in 1987 and serving under Betty Boothroyd until 1998.
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Daily Mail
19 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
JEFF PRESTRIDGE: Why is it so difficult to get our pensions in one place?
Nothing is straightforward when it comes to pensions. Complexity rules. It's one of the reasons more than 40 per cent of working age people are not saving enough for retirement. Many just don't understand the myriad rules governing pension contributions, permitted tax breaks and how funds at retirement can be turned into hard cash. As a result, they desist from long-term saving when they should be embracing it. This complexity extends to when people attempt to put their pension affairs in good order. Long gone are the days when people retired after working all their life for one employer. Now, unlike our parents who had one works pension to see them through retirement, we have a mishmash of pensions – some good, others not fit for purpose. Some we may have forgotten about or struggle to track down. Research by financial services company Hargreaves Lansdown shows more than one in five people have lost track of pensions accumulated over a lifetime of work. To address this, consumer groups have repeatedly called for the setting up of an online dashboard, allowing people to see in one place key details on all of the pension plans they have accumulated over their working life. Such a dashboard would be a game-changer, allowing people to piece together their pension jigsaw – and enable them to make better choices when saving and at the point of retirement. Yet despite promises by previous governments to get it off the ground, it has yet to see the light of day. Although a quango called the Pensions Dashboards Programme has been tasked with delivering the scheme, the project trundles on at a snail's pace. Pensions minister Emma Reynolds says the Government is committed to getting a dashboard over the line. But I doubt it will be fully operational before the next General Election in 2029. In light of such slow progress, Labour should listen to those calling for new rules governing pension switches. Pension switching and consolidation of plans makes great sense for many savers, giving them greater control over their long-term finances and the opportunity to benefit from lower fund fees. It's not for everyone. Some older pensions can include valuable benefits that would be lost if transferred to another provider. Yet overall, it is good for consumers and should be hiccup-free. Sadly, it isn't. Many providers make life difficult for want-away customers by dragging out transfers over many weeks and sometimes months. Scandalous. PensionBee, a relatively new pension kid on the block, wants the Government to introduce a ten-day pension switching guarantee, backed by law. It would be similar to the seven-day current account switching service (CASS) launched 12 years ago to stop banks dilly-dallying on account transfer requests. CASS's data indicates that of the 11.9 million current account switches completed since 2013, 99.6 per cent have been within the required seven working days. PensionBee's Lisa Picardo says pension switching delays 'have real opportunity costs – hampering engagement, costing people real money, limiting their choices and undermining trust in the whole pensions system'. To prompt change, PensionBee has set up a petition calling for 'faster, electronic pension transfers'. Bafflingly, there's no specific mention of the ten-day switching guarantee, nor the compensation savers should (must) get if the guarantee is breached. And the petition's title – 'legislate to mandate offer of electronic pension transfers and higher standards' – reads like it has been dreamt up by an actuary who has spent too much time immersed in the complexities of pensions. I can only assume there is method in the madness. As I said at the start, nothing is straightforward when it comes to pensions. Find the petition at Cashless tills have invaded our shops Paying for goods with cash at a supermarket should be a given. 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If you have had difficulties banking a cheque or making a payment by cheque, email me at
Daily Mail
19 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
73 Holyrood fat cats paid over £100,000 as satisfaction with public services falls
The number of Scots civil servants earning more than £100,000 a year has soared under the SNP, the Scottish Mail on Sunday can reveal. Taxpayers are footing the bill for a growing army of civil servants - many of whom are predominanty allowed to work from home - as satisfaction with public services plummets. Overall, the Scottish Government now employs an unprecedented 73 mandarins who are officially ranked as Senior Civil Service (SCS) - mostly heads of various departments and directorates. In total, this upper tier of civil servants now costs the public purse an astonishing £8.6m a year in wages, with the vast majority earning in excess of £110,000 - three times the Scottish average annual salary. Earlier this year the SNP administration's finance secretary Shona Robison slashed millions from the budgets for the NHS, mental health and transport, claiming Scotland was facing 'enormous and growing' financial pressure. Despite this, the number of senior civil servants employed to run the country has grown sharply - as has the cost. At the same time, the civil service has come under fire for its refusal to abandon 'working from home' and for a 'sick-note' culture in which government staff take far more days off than workers in the private sector. Critics have attacked the 'out of control' cost to taxpayers and accused the SNP Government of getting its priorities all wrong. Scottish Conservative spokesman for finance and local government Craig Hoy said: 'The civil service, and the cost of it, have ballooned out of control under the SNP's watch, and by far the biggest expansion has been in those on the highest salaries. 'When Scots are paying the UK's highest taxes, but seeing worsening services, there 's no excuse for fat-cat pay packages of this sort.' Callum McGoldrick, researcher at the TaxPayers' Alliance said: 'At a time when public services are clearly under pressure, it's hard to justify the steady growth in high-paid civil servants at the top of the Scottish government. 'With budgets being squeezed across the board, Scottish taxpayers will be asking whether ministers have got their priorities right. 'The focus should be on improving services for the public, not inflating the salaries bill in Holyrood.' The Scottish Government recently published its annual list of Senior Civil Service staff, reflecting the situation at the end of March. Overall there are now 73 SCS on a wage bill of totalling £8.6m. The number is higher than the 66 staff on six-figure sums last year, which had added up to a total wage bill of £7.5m. In comparison, there were 52 SCS on £100,000 in 2023, 38 in 2021 and just 14 as recently as 2018. The current list includes director generals of government departments - plus heads of directorates including Cladding Remediation, Covid Inquiry Response, Organisational Continuity and Heat In Buildings. The highest paid is Caroline Lamb, director general of the health department and head of the Scottish NHS, whose salary is listed between £205,000 and £209,000 a year. Four other staff are listed as earning over £150,000, including former Permanent Secretary JP Marks who took home £190,000 as the country's most senior civil servant before leaving in April to take up a new job as chief executive of tax agency HMRC. He was replaced by Joe Griffin, who in his former role as the Scottish Government's director general of strategy & external affairs earned £140,000 a year. The official responsible for the country's finances is director general of the Scottish Exchequer Alyson Stafford who takes home £160,000. 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However the edict has sparked complaints from some Scottish civil servants about the cost of having commute more regularly to government offices in Edinburgh and Glasgow. Some have raised concerns about the environmental impact of driving themselves to work - while others have warned the order to return to the office is 'an attack on their human rights'. Separately it emerged in June that Scotland's civil servants last year took an average of 8.7 days off sick - the worst recorded rate of absence in the government's history, and more than double the rate across the private sector. Although levels of pay for SCS staff are reserved to Westminster, the size and hierarchy of the civil service in Scotland is a matter for the Scottish Government. Responding to the criticism levelled at it, the government argued that its senior civil servants brought valuable expertise - while also vowing to deliver 'optimum value' for taxpayers. A spokesperson said: 'Senior civil servants manage performance and delivery, and ensure the Scottish Government achieves its goals. They bring significant expertise and progress the government's plans for delivering on its Programme for Government. ' It also said its public service reform strategy will 'ensure every pound spent delivers optimum value' and will 'reduce the annual combined corporate costs of the government and Scotland's public bodies by £1 billion over five years'.
Daily Mail
19 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
74 years on - and Britain is still struggling to balance the books
The past often looms larger than the present as one grows older. So I was grateful to receive a letter from a loyal reader who found a newspaper cutting revealing the contents of the 1951-52 Budget. At the time I was still in my Silver Cross pram blissfully unaware of the privations of the nation. But as a financial journalist who has reported on Budgets since the mid-1970s, the news was depressingly familiar. It dated to the final days of the post-War Government. The occupant of No 11 seeking to balance the nation's books was Hugh Gaitskell. Hailing from the moderate wing of Labour, he was the Rachel Reeves of his time. Tax and spend were the order of the day, but the welfare state was still in its infancy and handouts on today's scale were a dream. Dominating the Budget was defence of the realm. On the eve of the Korean War, Britain was spending 8.5 per cent of national output on the military. That was sharply down on the peak during the Second World War. It puts in perspective Keir Starmer's pledge to devote 2.5 per cent of gross domestic product to defence by 2027 and the undertaking at the recent Nato summit to eventually raise this to 5 per cent of GDP. In contrast the big consumers of Government resources in 2025-26 are welfare, the NHS and education. Spending on these was minuscule, compared with arms, in 1951-52. A key similarity with today is that the UK of 74 years ago was up to its neck in borrowing, debt and interest payments. Defeating Hitler was the only goal that mattered for Winston Churchill's Cabinet and in 1951 the ratio of debt-to-GDP stood at a huge 200 per cent. Britain has suffered three successive shocks to the public finances this century. The global financial crisis, Covid and soaring energy bills after Russia's invasion of Ukraine have sent the national debt soaring to 100 per cent of annual output. But remarkably that is half the level of 1951. The cost of servicing all that debt – including war loans from the US, savings certificates and Government bonds – was also far higher then. The annual interest bill was £215 billion in today's money – almost twice the £126 billion cost of servicing the national debt today. Those urging Reeves to loosen her fiscal straitjacket may find solace in the 1951 deal. Britain was deep in debt but survived. Taxation then was a simpler affair. Dominated, as it is today, by income tax, it was boosted by a surtax on the wealthy. National Insurance, now worth £199 billion a year to the exchequer, was near invisible. The biggest change to the tax system came after Britain joined the EU in 1973. It brought the Revenue the gift of VAT, which this year is set to raise £214 billion, making it the second biggest revenue-raiser after income tax. In 1951, when consumer spending power was modest, purchase tax raised a miserable £310 million or £3.8 billion today. One ever-present element of Budgets is alcohol duty. A few pennies off a pint is still seen by No 11 as a way of soothing the troubles of working people. As long as they can find a pub that's still open after the Chancellor's latest tax raid.
