The chief executives of Aviva and Aberdeen have urged the chancellor, John Healey, to prevent leaks about possible tax changes ahead of his first budget on 28 October, warning that speculation before the last two budgets prompted savers to pull money out of their pensions.
Dame Amanda Blanc, chief executive of Aviva, the FTSE 100 insurance and savings group, said she had asked Healey directly not to “fly kites”, the practice of leaking potential policies to gauge the reaction of the public and markets, and to crack down on rumours about the measures he might announce.
Blanc said she raised the issue at a breakfast meeting last month between the chancellor and the bosses of some of the UK’s leading companies.
“I made the point to say please don’t do that, and he made the commitment that they weren’t going to do that, so I hope that that is the case,” she said. “What we don’t want is for customers to make decisions that in the long run they regret when policies are not changed.”
Jason Windsor, chief executive of Aberdeen Group, the FTSE 250 investments and savings company, said: “This new government needs to engage the industry properly to avoid unnecessary and damaging speculation to people’s pensions that has dogged the last two budgets.”
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