So, no personal tax then, that's tax avoidance, pure and simple. It's legal to do but morally questionable in my opinion.
No it isn't tax avoidance, it's a very common and perfectly acceptable method for Directors to remunerate themselves. Corporation Tax is essentially a form of income tax after which dividends can be paid, which are still subject to further taxation depending on the value of the dividend. However, the recent changes with dividends do make it a less favourable system to use.
It is NI friendly, hence why it was so popular, but if it is morals being questioned then I would be questioning the morals behind the requirement for Employer's NIC first.
The fact that he has chosen to pump income into his pension, and bear in mind he can't access that money until the appropriate time without usually suffering penalties, is perfectly moral in my eyes and also the Government's eyes because not only do they openly encourage it but they have made it tax friendly to further encourage such. As already mentioned in this thread he will be taxed at the appropriate rates when he draws down on the pension depending on the values.
This is all very different from what Apple, Amazon etc are doing. What he is doing is seen as clever tax planning using fairly basic systems which are all very transparent and reported quite clearly to HMRC. What the big corps are doing is tax avoidance using nonsense loans, interest and complex webs of companies and accounts etc in order to try and conceal what's really going on. It would probably be called tax evasion if the Government and HMRC weren't so scared to upset them.
It's ridiculous to compare what he is doing to what Apple, Amazon etc are doing and whilst the employees may be paying their NIC do you think the Directors of these corporations will be paying all their Tax and NIC? Of course not, it will be done in the most tax efficient manner possible with no concern for morals.
I bet people proclaiming to be so morally righteous are still buying iPhones and ordering things from Amazon.