1. A great deal of time and energy has been spent over the last twelve months or so on the Government's proposed 1972 State scheme. And rightly so, for the financial implications are substantial while the problems of advising employers and trustees on how or to what extent to adjust their occupational schemes, and on how to operate them thereafter, are formidable.

2. As a result, however, there is perhaps a danger of not enough attention being paid to the proposed simultaneous legislation for the preservation of pension rights. The object of this paper is to air some of the problems related to pension preservation and its implications.

Some definitions

3. The Department of Health and Social Security's latest summary of the Government's three 1969 Social Security White Papers (Cmmd. 3883, 4124 and 4195) were, I suspect, prepared primarily for the benefit of members of the two Houses of Parliament. It seems that many of them have had some difficulty in understanding the complexities of the new earnings related pension proposals. Certainly the Government's spokesman in the House of Lords found quite a few difficulties in presenting the White Paper on abatement to that body.