Gregg McClymont
Speculation about the first pension’s minister of a new Government continues to mount, as does Labour pension policy.
This map shows a landslide for Labour but where are the details of its pension policy? #GeneralElection #UK #pensions https://t.co/bqqLiKCo7k
— Josephine Cumbo (@JosephineCumbo) May 1, 2024
One story doing the rounds among my left-leaning colleagues is that former Shadow Minister and defender of the faith in Labour to articulate its vision, Gregg McClymont has been asked to step into the House of Lords and act as Minister, as Ros Altmann did, following the end of the coalition.
While this speculation is utterly without foundation, it gives me the opportunity to consider McClymont’s unique qualifications.
Firstly, he is at heart a historian and student of pensions. He has written a number of largely unread though highly readable tracts in conjunction with his collaborator Andy Tarrant and he was a university lecturer at some second rate place in the Thames valley.
Secondly, he is not of the bubble. His broad Cumbernauld accent, somewhat diluted after years of southern living , marks his roots. Clever he may be, educated he may be but he is very much a man of the people.
Thirdly and most relevantly for the purposes of this blog, he is a genuinely colourful man. I have been warned recently against the use of “colourful” and hope I will not be considered “gingeriest” in applying it to McClymont.
Conflicts
Since leaving politics , following the rout of Labour in Scotland in 2015, McClymont has pursued a career in financial services, first at People(ST) Aberdeen which he wisely left while the going was good, and landed a senior role at IFM, the Australian infrastructure moguls, set up by the Super industry.
He is still a young man with a young family and like every London based Dad, he knows the cost of living. He can be and should be a working peer, he is well liked for his work.
This peerage and ministerial position might be considered a conflict for some, but not by me – he lobbies for better investment and not for a view on pensions and such is the support for long-term assets in pension schemes of all colours, that we should consider his work IFM as “unconflicted”.
Alternatives
At last year’s PLSA conference in Manchester, I asked the swarthy Scot who his tip for the first Labour Pension Minister since 2010 might be. He suggested that with such a large potential influx of new MP’s , someone was bound to turn up. I took this at the time as a guarded answer, in tune with McClymont’s uncanny knack for loading his pronouncements with unspecified significance. He would have made a good witch in the opening scene of Macbeth, pronouncing on future Thanes.
Maybe he knew something even then.
I don’t want to put the mockers on Gregg’s elevation. The Labour party has lost a great peer in Frank Field and could gain one in Gregg McClymont. He is a fine Dad, a decent footballer and someone I have always got on well with.
I hope the rumours prove true.
