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Showing posts from January, 2020

The NI Fund's reserves don't pay down the National Debt

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The NI Fund discussed in this post covers England, Wales and Scotland only. Northern Ireland has a separate NI Fund, which is excluded from the figures given in this post. However, it works in exactly the same way as the Fund discussed here.  Sometimes the government is its own worst enemy. HM Treasury's hamfisted response to this Freedom of Information request from Trudy Baddams of the pension rights campaign group "We Paid In, You Paid Out", has caused a very silly storm. Ms Baddams asked this question: Can you confirm that the National Insurance Fund (NIF) is presently in surplus and by how much? Can you also please confirm how much has been paid from the fund into the National Insurance Investment Fund in the last 10 years? In response, HM Treasury pointed her to the NIF accounts , which are produced yearly. But then it added this paragraph (my emphasis): The latest NIF Accounts show that the balance of the NIF increased by £2,286,469,000 in 2017-18.