Pensions is at the heart of both the government’s and the Labour party’s economic agenda and this event is aimed at those interested in a learning and strategy discussion about transformative reform of the UK pensions system that we could collectively push the next government to adopt.
WHAT: Workshop on fixing the UK’s failing pension system, so it works for pensioners (now and in the future), the economy, and the planet.
WHEN & WHERE: Thursday 25 January 2024, 1400-1600 on Zoom.
WHO: Common Wealth and Finance Innovation Lab invite all those fighting for a new economy to learn about the current pensions system and options for reform, and discuss strategic approaches to winning transformative change under the next government.
About the event.
The UK’s pension system is broken: it provides a very poor deal for pensioners and pension savers, exposes the economy to risks, and is bad for the climate and environment. The bottom half of the population holds just 1% percent of pension assets and will thus remain dependent on the state pension which is one of the lowest in Europe. Even worse, over 80% of the population that have only Defined Contribution pensions, which have become the norm, are not saving enough to have what the public believes is the minimum acceptable income in retirement. At the same time, the pensions system can become a source of major economic instability, as shown last September when the Liability-Driven Investment (LDI) pensions crisis was only prevented from turning into a full blown financial crisis by massive intervention by the Bank of England. The UK has the largest pensions market in Europe and the second largest in the OECD which means the investment strategies of UK pension funds have a major climate and environmental impact. £300 billion in UK pensions are invested in companies with a high risk of driving deforestation and over £88bn in the fossil fuel industry, ten times their equity investment in FTSE 350 clean energy stocks.
The next few years present a rare opportunity to influence major reforms to pensions policy. In addition to the growing crisis highlighted above, both political parties have major – though not yet well defined – plans for pensions reform, seeing pension fund investment as key to their economic growth plans. The Chancellor set some reforms earlier in the year, and went further in the autumn statement calling for ‘freeing up’ pension funds to invest in a wider number of assets, and consulting on broader reforms while the Shadow Chancellor put pensions at the heart of Labour’s economic strategy, and promised a major review. The Labour party has shifted its economic position towards a Bidenesque industrial strategy and is relying on finding effective mechanisms for shifting private finance in this direction, making pensions reform central to its plans for government.
As a movement, we cannot afford to miss this golden opportunity to influence this window of change and shape the future pensions framework.
Common Wealth have published their proposals for reform, as have Finance Innovation Lab.