On the go: The Welsh government has been left with “no option” but to cover the pension tax bills of senior doctors, mirroring measures introduced in England. The health minister for Wales has branded the situation “totally unacceptable”.
First reported by the Financial Times, Vaughan Gething said on Thursday that his Labour-dominated government “fundamentally” disagreed with a National Health Service scheme to reimburse doctors in England paying pension tax bills in this financial year.
In November, NHS England announced that members of the NHS Pension Scheme in frontline clinical roles will have their tax bills for breaching the allowance in the current financial year covered, in an attempt to shore up the health service over the winter.
These individuals can pay their tax through the ‘scheme pays’ process, which allows them to settle annual allowance tax charges of more than £2,000 through the NHS pension fund without needing to find cash up front. Instead, their benefits are adjusted at retirement and will pay interest.
Under the proposal, the government will then make good on any reduced pension before the doctors reach retirement.
“We were left with no option but to also consider putting in place the same temporary solution,” said Mr Gething, in a letter to Matt Hancock, the UK’s health secretary.
“The position that the Welsh government found itself in before Christmas was totally unacceptable. The tax issue should be resolved by the Treasury, not left to the health budgets of each of the four UK governments to absorb.”
