5 January 2012 Last updated at 17:18
Anglo-Dutch oil giant Royal Dutch Shell is to close its final-salary pension scheme to new employees in the UK.
From early 2013, new staff at Shell will be offered membership of a scheme without a guaranteed level of pension.
Existing members of the Shell scheme can continue contributing and building up their salary-linked pensions.
As employers look to cut costs, 90% of final-salary schemes have been closed to new members, according to the Association of Consulting Actuaries.
It is believed that this is the last of the UK’s top 100 publicly-listed companies to pull out of offering final-salary pensions to new recruits.
A final-salary scheme offers a guaranteed pension based on earnings at the end of your career and length of service.
Instead, new joiners will only be able to join a defined contribution scheme, in which the amount of pension received depends on the success of investments.
“The plan will be designed to ensure that the reward package in the UK for new hires remains strongly competitive,” said a spokesman for Shell.
The company added that the move “reflected market trends” in the UK.
However, the company said that – unlike some others – it would continue to uprate existing members’ pensions in line with the Retail Prices Index measure of inflation, rather than the slower-moving Consumer Prices Index.
The government is consulting on the issue until the end of March.
“We await the conclusion of the consultation but at this stage we are not anticipating that we will need to amend the rules… which give RPI as the basis for the annual review of pensions,” a Shell statement said.
Pension schemes explained
- Final-salary scheme: Guaranteed pension based on earnings at the end of your career and length of service
- Career average scheme: Guaranteed pension based on your average pay over your career
- Defined contribution scheme: Determined by contributions and investment returns. Usually worth less than final-salary pensions
Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
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A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
