Dr. Barra Roantree:

I am not so sure about their pension arrangements. If they are part of the single public service pension scheme this is not relevant to them as they are already enrolled in a pension. Thinking carefully, one of the issues with consideration of the fairness of tax relief with respect to the marginal rate is you end up treating defined benefit, DB, and defined contribution, DP, differently and there is a big public sector-private sector division in participation in that. With apologies for making this point repeatedly, the tax-free lump sum is where you can give a lot more equal treatment for public and private sector pensions, in that it is something both can avail of. The tax-free lump sum is something very large and not particularly well-targeted at encouraging people who we want to save to do so. Again, that is where the focus should be for those who wish to restrict tax relief, rather than changing the marginal rate of relief.