Phoenix Files Episode 1: British Steel workers’ time to choose

For the next four weeks, The Advice Show will be off air. Instead, Citywire New Model Adviser’s chief reporter James Fitzgerald has produced a special podcast series called The Phoenix Files, which includes testimony from steelworkers, pensions experts, the FCA and IFAs on how the British Steel Pension Scheme unfolded and if and when the misselling saga will ever end. In episode one, Fitzgerald speaks with British steelworker Rich Caddy about the early days of the scandal in 2017, including how British Steel and the scheme’s trustees let workers down during the ‘time to choose’ period for switching their pensions, and what happened when IFAs flocked to Scunthorpe, Port Talbot and Teeside to advise those steelworkers. Pensions expert and former IFA Al Rush also tells frightening tales of adviser misconduct in the early days of the scandal, and Hargreaves Lansdown’s pensions and retirement spokesperson, Helen Morrisey, gives her thoughts on why so much of the advice that was given was unsuitable.