Welcome to the Pensions Reform Group

"The Universal Protected Pension we put forward is the only workable scheme that guarantees to break the link between retirement and poverty" - Chair of the Pensions Reform Group, Rt. Hon. Frank Field MP.

The Pensions Reform Group was established in 1999 with membership drawn from politics, industry, academia, voluntary bodies, and other stakeholder groups. Our joint endeavour is to begin a serious and detailed debate on banishing pensioner poverty from our shores.

Latest News & Updates

Monday, 25 April, 2005

To fund or not to fund?

Ben Forsyth, secretary of the Pensions Reform Group, today sets out how part-funding would strengthen the state pension in an article in Pensions Week magazine.

He also looks at the provisions which should be made for governance structures that keep politics out of investment decisions.

To read Ben Forsyth's article in Pensions Week, please follow this link to the Press & Media page.

Monday, 4 April, 2005

IoD Makes Pre-Election Call For Pension Reform

Leaders of the Institute of Directors say they are ready to throw their weight behind the political party prepared to make comprehensive pension reform an election pledge, even if it means introducing compulsory employer contributions.

The Institute of Directors has published its pre-election Business Manifesto, containing its views and wishes on fifteen policy areas. Pension reform has been singled out as the "key priority" in the manifesto, with the document saying that politicians should tackle the pensions crisis through policies that offer "radical simplification, lower taxes, tax incentives, higher employer and employee contributions, and an element of compulsion".

Leaders of the Institute say they will back the political party that is prepared to make comprehensive pension reform an election pledge, an offer likely to cause problems with sections of the 54,000 membership opposed to the idea.

Miles Templeman, the Institute's Director General, says that he believes employers would accept compulsory pension contributions as part of broader reforms, including the right to work and save beyond the current retirement age and the end of means testing, to ensure more people saved enough for their old age.

"If it's a level playing field and everyone has to pay the same, then some of the problem of compulsion goes away," he said. "I think when our members talked about compulsion they may well have been talking about the employees but I think we may well have to grapple with the idea that it's both."