There is a pensions bill in the Kings Speech;

Pension Schemes Bill

• Measures to prevent people from losing track of their pension pots through the consolidation of defined contribution (DC) individual deferred small pension pots. It is understood this will enable an individual’s deferred small pots to be automatically brought together into one place to maximise income in retirement, and deliver value for every saver. This measure will also benefit pension schemes, which currently are required to manage a substantial number of loss-making pots, undermining their ability to invest in improving their offer for savers.
• Measures to ensure all members are saving into pension schemes delivering value through the value for money framework. It is understood this will include introducing a standardised test that trust-based DC schemes will need to meet to demonstrate they deliver value. The government believes this should result in consolidation in the pensions market by leaving a smaller number of well-performing, well governed schemes which will not only improve outcomes for savers but is likely to lead to more productive investment of funds. The Financial Conduct Authority will ensure the framework is applied to contract schemes and therefore consistently across the whole pension market.
• Measures requiring pension schemes to offer retirement products so people have a pension and not just a savings pot when they stop work by placing duties on trustees of occupational pension schemes to offer a retirement income solution or range of solutions, including default investment options, to their members. It is understood the government believes this will improve outcomes for savers and is likely to lead to more funds being invested for longer, giving the potential for investments in productive assets – boosting economic growth.
• Measures consolidating the defined benefit (DB) market through commercial superfunds. The government says this will offer greater protection for members in closed legacy DB schemes from the risk of losing part of their pension if their employer becomes insolvent.
• Measures reaffirming the Pensions Ombudsman (TPO) as a competent court, removing the need for pension schemes to apply to the courts to enforce TPO decisions in relation to the recovery of overpayments – a move that will alleviate pressures and cost for courts, schemes, and members, ensuring recovery costs are kept to a minimum.
• Measures amending the special rules for end of life for the Pension Protection Fund (PPF) and the Financial Assistance Scheme (FAS) – a move that will extend the definition of ‘terminal illness’, allowing eligible members within the PPF and FAS to receive a lump sum payment at an earlier stage.

From the way our trade press and our trade associations have been going on, you’d have thought that today’s Kings Speech would see Charles III spend his time in parliament delivering the 2017 AE reforms and a long list of consulted on concepts such as engagement,  mandated investment, trusteeship and mandate investments into UK equities.

That’s not how it works. The King may mention a few ideas  and wrap them up in a review of workplace pensions but that is not going to be making any national headlines and it certainly won’t mean anything is going to change from a legislative point of view – overnight. The Pensions Bill is pretty thin gruel

For a reality check, consider this article on the BBC’s front page today

There is no mention of pensions – no mention even of social care. Pensions are so low on the political news agenda that they don’t even creep into the discussion on worker’s rights.

Ask the majority of MPs and their constituents what they are interested in about pensions and they will talk with you about the triple lock, the state pension age and if a woman of a certain age – WASPI.

Our workplace pension system , which we deem such a success , is just a sidecar.

Our DB system has been allowed to slide from being a model for the world to a de-risked husk of what it once was. What productive assets it held were largely sold to meet the demands of leveraged LDI and now that it finds itself solvent again, the best it seems to want for itself is to hand over the keys to insurers for a massive premium.

Our DC workplace pensions do not provide pensions and are massively underfunded for the job they are claimed to be doing.

The public see a bewildering array of choices , called  “freedoms” and are told they need to take advice. When they approach advisers they are frequently turned away for having insufficient money to warrant the cost of advice. Free guidance is available from Maps but it is generic, most people end up asking for their money back and organising retirement from their bank account.

There is no common purpose behind what we are doing and consequently most of us look to the state pension as something that – complex as it may be to administer – at least tells us what we are likely to get.

For example

In our bubble..

The king does not speak just to the wealthy, he speaks to the nation. The policies that will be announced this afternoon will be for everyone and need to have common assent to work.

Some pension innovation has the potential to catch the popular imagination

This was how the Daily Express announced CDC in 2018. Pension Dashboards have the capacity to excite people with the thought of finding lost pensions and combining pots so they can more easily be spent.

People want pensions to provide a consistent lifetime income that gives them dignity in retirement but we focus on distractions such as the IHT advantages of dying with your pot before 75.

In our bubble we have quite lost the principle of serving the public and have made pensions a way of serving ourselves. I hope the King’s Speech announces a review of what pensions are for, so did Calum Cooper yesterday.