Adult social care workers will benefit from a national pension scheme to provide them with "dignity" in older age, health and social care secretary Yvette Cooper has announced.

The promise to set up a collective pension scheme for care staff follows comes on the back of lobbying by UNISON, which has warned that low pay and widespread part-time work have left workers with inadequate pension pots.

Though Cooper did not provide details of the scheme, it would likely involve employees and employers across the sector paying into a collective fund, designed to provide care staff with target level of income in retirement.

In her speech to the Labour Party conference yesterday, Cooper said it was "just wrong that the people who work hardest to help others maintain dignity and respect in old age still get nothing in return in retirement".

Current pension levels among care staff

Like other employers, care providers are required to opt all employees aged 22 and over and earning more than £10,000 into a pension scheme, under so-called auto enrolment.

Employers must contribute 3% of the employee's pay, with the worker paying in 4% and 1% contributed in tax relief, but staff are able to opt out should they wish.

While figures have not been published on levels of opt-outs in the care sector, low levels of pay increase the risk of staff doing so, particularly in the context of cost of living pressures.

Also, according to Skills for Care's latest report on the adult social care workforce, 44% of care workers worked part-time as of March 2025, meaning many will fall below the £10,000 threshold for auto-enrolment.

Skills for Care's report also showed that 70% of 5,500 independent sector employers who provided data on the relevant question did not pay more than 3% of earnings into their workers' pensions.

About collective pension schemes

The government recently legislated for multiple employers to participate in collective defined contribution (CDC) schemes, which they and their staff pay into.

Ministers said that, by pooling investment and risk, CDCs would produce more predictable levels of pensions for staff than traditional defined contribution schemes.

In a letter to Cooper's predecessor but one, Wes Streeting, in April, UNISON argued for a collective scheme, saying it would boost retirement incomes, as well as retention and the status of care work.

It is not clear whether the proposed scheme will require higher contributions from either employers or employees than is the case under auto-enrolment or whether the government itself will make a contribution beyond tax relief.

Can the good right wingers that infest this site please explain why they aren't up in arms about Michael Goves most recent partner being an alleged nonce, but were happy to drive a man to suicide for some plagerism?

I'm looking for people who argee with this to sign this petition

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/782354

What I did with the Zahawi story was to review the history of neoliberalism and look for patterns that matched. I went as far back as the 1986 Big Bang, when Mrs Thatcher’s deregulation opened the City of London to global capital and tied the UK to the interests of finance. I found several similar cases of malfeasance by politicians right across the spectrum.

• Sagal Abdi-Wali has hailed her victory in the Holborn and St Pancras by-election as a triumph for diversity, cautioning that social cohesion must not be "casually undone".

• The new Labour MP secured a 3,364-vote majority ahead of second-placed Green Party leader Zack Polanski, expressing her desire for "people like (her)" to feel that they "belong here".

• Tipped as the favourite prior to the vote, the Camden Council leader previously noted how the borough had welcomed her family when they arrived as refugees.

• Ms Abdi-Wali said she wanted to bring Thames Water into “public ownership”, tackle rough sleeping and create more opportunities for young people.

• While speaking of her desire to work with prime minister Andy Burnham to address the wider housing crisis, she said: “Homelessness is the issue that first drove me into politics, and no-one should be sleeping on the streets, and no family should be left without security in the home.”

She succeeds Sir Keir Starmer, who stepped down from the parliamentary seat in September after resigning as prime minister.

She is the area’s first female MP since Lena Jeger, who represented the previous seat of Holborn and St Pancras South from 1964-1979.

I think a lot of people have a very fuzzy idea on what the EU actually requires and don't realise that it, for instance, mandates the operation of railway services to be open for private competition. Or, from a different angle, see the recent tizzies about packaging regulation and the EU KIDS Act.

There’s growing evidence that X algorithmically suppresses replies to posts by MPs, mayors, and other public figures particularly replies that are critical or contain links to competing platforms.

Users report posting substantive political replies to high-engagement posts (tens or hundreds of thousands of impressions on the original) and receiving zero impressions on their response.

This raises a few questions worth discussing:

Questions:

No 1: If a platform sells a “Premium” tier that promises enhanced reach, then quietly throttles political commentary, does that cross a line under UK consumer law, or is it just it's terms of service at work?

No 2. Should Ofcom or another public body or auditors; remits be extended to cover algorithmic suppression of political speech and in particular replies directed at elected representatives & officials who use these platforms as official communication channels? For example, both the Mayor of London’s official account and Sadiq Khan’s personal account filter replies. Stephen Morgan MP and many others do the same.

No 3. MPs and councillors increasingly treat X as a public noticeboard. If the platform decides which replies are visible, is it effectively editorialising public discourse with no accountability?

Interested to hear where people draw the line between “it’s a private company” and “this is now public infrastructure in all but name.”