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

Thursday, 25 May, 2006

Pensions White Paper: A Lost Opportunity

The Government is set to squander the first ever opportunity an administration has had to secure an investment-led rather than a tax-financed reform of pensions. The success of Pension Credit has freed the Government to think exclusively of long-term reform without having to use any new contributions for immediate pay-out to abate poverty amongst today's pensioners.

Why will anyone believe that the thin gruel of tax-financed reforms announced today will last the course when, as part of the Government's reform package, it is to scrap as we know it the tax-financed State Second Pension which has only been on the statute book for four years? No tax-finance reform of state pensions enacted since the 1960s has lasted more than a few years.

Friday, 12 May, 2006

Response to the Pensions Deal

The announcement of the deal brokered between the Prime Minister and the Chancellor has everything to do with getting the Government through the next seven days and little to do with securing a lasting pension settlement for the next seven decades.

A tax-financed reform will not last the course. Why should taxpayers believe that the Turner proposals will survive when they involve the Government butchering the tax-financed State Second Pension which the Government introduced only four years ago?

Because of the success of the Chancellors Pension Credit in giving the most help ever to the poorest pensioners, the possibility has opened up for the first time for an investment-led pension reform to take pensioners off means-tested welfare. The Turner proposals, even if implemented in full, hold out only the prospect of preventing the numbers of pensioners on means-tested benefits rising after the reforms are fully in place, and it is far from clear that this is what the Government is signing up to.

The tax-financed reforms that Turner and now the Government are proposing defer the cost to future taxpayers. The generous pay-as-you-go route has been tried before with the basic state pension and SERPS. It has never been durable. Instead of an IOU from politicians, the Government should consult on an investment-led alternative that gives voters a stake in the global economy.

Note to Editors

The Chancellor was apprehensive about the Turner proposals because of the increased taxes that would be involved. Turner proposes three reforms all of which have to be implemented if, at some future date unspecified, the number of pensioners on means-tested assistance ceases to rise.

The three reforms are

1. Linking the basic state pension to earnings
2. Making the basic state pension free of any contribution record and
3. Turning the State Second Pension from an earnings-related contributory pension gaining an earnings-related pension to an earnings-related contributory pension for a flat-rate pension.