Much as both the Unions and the Labour Shadow Front Bench would like the answer to that question to be “yes”, it is infact “no”.
The Trade Unions are pursuing a public sector agenda that focusses on LGPS, unfunded pensions and the state pension, the Labour Party is deep in the weeds of special interest stuff like taxing the LTA, pot for life and delivering growth from private sector pensions. If I could be critical of this conference, it seems that the Union movement is spending more time looking backwards than forwards. If I could be critical of the Labour Party, it seemed to be more interested in winning the support of the Unions than promoting its pension policy.
The two keynotes of the day were both over within the first hour of the Conference, much as everyone seemed to be enjoying meeting up with each other , the subsequent sessions merged into one as delegate after delegate , speaker after speaker wanted to congratulate themselves and the union movement for what it had achieved. The really tough stuff is not achieved by PowerPoint, it happens because of the hard work of unions in the field. The pension officers and the union MNTs could scarce be heard above the shrill voices of the academics and statisticians who dominated debates.
Kate Bell – Keynote one
Kate Bowles, assistant general secretary of the TUC, set the tone
Pensions a barometer of a society working as it should. Everyone should get the pension they deserve.
so far so good
The TUC want a new Penson commission. Jeannie Drake, who was on the first Pension Commission wasn’t in the audience. Liz Kenwood , representing Labour was. She made no mention of a Pension Commission in her speech
Progress on auto-enrolment has stalled. Risk is not being shared but is falling squarely on the shoulders of members.
The Unions want employers to pay more into auto-enrolment, to adopt CDC (risk sharing) and to get on with it. None of this is happening.
The Government is stalling wasting time on the lifetime provider model, a distraction to the real issues
I’d sat in a lifetime provider seminar the day before, I did not get the impression that Labour had dismissed “Lifetime provider” , the shadow pensions minister seemed to be listening hard to arguments in the room to give savers what they want – a pot for life.
What the unions want is for a Labour Government to
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Tackle under saving by getting more people “in” and raising employer contributions -Phasing out the £10,000 earnings trigger
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Increase the state pension (via the triple lock) to tackle the pension gender gap
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Address the risk transfer from DB to DC through promoting collective DC, and by Preserving and re-opening DB schemes
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Government to address the increasing gap in life expectancy between those with and without wealth. The Plans to increase state pension to 67 in the next parliament should be shelved.
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Encourage responsible investment nurturing a fairer green economy.
Liz Kendall – reading a speech clearly not of her own writing
Liz Kendall, shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
Labour wants to help;-
An ageing society; to be celebrated and looked forward to with hope not fear.
Labour recognises
More than 2m pensioners living in poverty , older private renters are at record levels.
Pension Credit, AE, S2P were the achievements of the last Labour Government. The Tories have stalled on AE, Labour would finish the job.
Patricia Hollis, Jeannie Drake and Barbara Castle – these Labour women blazed the trail and are my (Liz Kendall’s inspiration.)
Kendall held that the Conservatives are responsible for
- The LDI crisis
- Breaking of the triple lock
- Cost of Living crisis
“Pensioner poverty has risen on the Tories watch , after years of rising after Labour”
The Tories can no longer claim to be the party for pensioners.
The Budget leaves £8m pensioners £1,000 pa worse off.
She told the room that The Tories need to spell out who pays for NI cuts and asked
Will this £46bn promise fall on higher taxation (for pensioners) who don’t pay national insurance
Kendall concluded that
the policy on National insurance is not a plan – it is chaos.
She contrasted the Conservative cowboy cabinet with Labour plans fully costed and fully explained. She stressed the need for CLEAN ENERGY and to get Britain working again.
She gave the unions a commitment to delivering certainty includes preserving the triple lock.
And she promised a
“Pension Review announced in January, which will set out a return to progress which has stalled.”
The focus would be on more better paid jobs , and decent second pensions for all.
Cracks between Unions and Labour.
Jo Cumbo from the FT commented that Kate Bell had called for state pension age rise to 67 , and asked would Labour do for this. Jo has now published an article on this.
Liz Kendall replied that there were –
“no plans to lower state pension age, but a concern about local differences in life expectancy”.
She referred all discussion on “productive finance” to Rachel Reeves , who was conducting the pension review working with industry and consumer groups to remove barriers to investing in UK Plc.
She told the room that “Jeannie Drake and Baroness Hollis looking down on me“. I am amazed that Jeannie can look down on anyone!
There were calls from the floor for Government intervention
Will labour look to change pension schemes to narrow pension gender and ethnicity gaps (the male model):
Will Labour restore the Public Sector Pensions’ link between the normal retirement age and public sector pension age
Will Labour ban the outsourcing of workers away from LGPS and other public sector schemes and replacing them into minimum funded DC schemes.
None of which could be answered by the Shadow Minister, as clearly she was in declaration rather than conversation mode.
Journalist questions
Sandra Woolf of the Telegraph asked whether the pension review would include public pensions, reminding Kendall that a 2013 review had promised no change for 25 years.
Rob White from Daily Telegraph asked if Labour was the party of the self-employed -and what the link would be between self-employed national insurance and the maintenance of the triple lock
There were lines of army up in every row of the room , but there was very little being asked and a lot of statements being made.
The only change I could see between Labour and Conservative pension policy appears to be over the Life Time Allowance, about which this Conference heard nothing
Are Labour close to Conservatives than the Unions?
The Minister concluded
“Change is the business I want to be in!”
It was one sound bite too much – I packed my laptop away and wondered whether we are going to ever see lasting change from the DWP or indeed from the unions.
The real conversations are going on elsewhere. Labour and Conservatives both see pensions as an engine for growth in the economy and not as the TUC’s “barometer of a functioning society”.
Pensions are not seen as the engine of growth but the source of borrowing to fill the gap in the “generosity of friendly investors. Unfunded is an amusing title they are funded, by taxation.
This reminds me of a story I read as a child. Set on a farm, the story follows a group of animals who overthrow their human farmer, Mr. Jones, with the hope of creating a fair and equal society.
However, as time goes on, the pigs, led by the cunning and power-hungry Napoleon, gradually seize control and establish a dictatorship, exploiting and manipulating the other animals.
The novel explores themes of corruption, power, and the dangers a scathing critique of political systems and human nature, highlighting the potential for tyranny and the importance of vigilance in safeguarding freedom and equality
That’s a brilliant analogy JM.
Everyone knows a fair and just pension system should start with the vision and the actual desire to deliver a pension in retirement. But the cunning with clever use of language look to trick us with promises of “protection” and “de-risking” that only serves to diminish and take away our pensions, and offer us “empowerment” and “invidividualism” over our “own” pots, as if presenting a sense of ownership or control is the panacea, when what they are really espousing is their extraction of a risk-free rent for holding our money, and leaving the working man with no practical alternative but to be beholden to self-setting annuities they wish to foist upon us, or else we’ve to continue to manage our pots as we face mental decline.
If TPR stands by its own numbers, then there is indeed half-a-trill £ excess in legacy DB, showing that collective DB is affordable for the working men and women, even in the private sector.
But having stripped our schemes of the life-giving growth and return assets, and gotten used to the continue drip feed from pension funds to run public services, the cunning are boxed into a corner of their own making – all must know by now that unless they stop and allow / require the Schemes to re-invest, then this can only end in economic catastrophe, but the short termist that the political class inhabit will not allow them to face up to this truth.