Emma Reynolds points out over 5m people not auto- enrolled into a pension but tells #plsaannual24 we’ll have to wait till phase 2 of pensions review pic.twitter.com/Ei3vuoLZxS
— Henry Tapper (@henryhtapper) October 15, 2024
The PLSA were treated to Emma Reynolds reading her speech falteringly, the PLSA talking about pension adequacy “correctly” and no one daring to talk about tax. We all smiled our way through an awkward first day of the PLSA’s annual conference, knowing that for all the talk of sidecars, lifetime savings models and financial education, the one thing that will really make a difference to people’s later lives, the employer sponsoring our pensions – is under threat.
My question , submitted to the Conference app “how does a 13.8% NI surcharge on pension contributions help adequacy, was not asked. Emma Douglas announced that the Minister would take any question unless it was about tax. The pension minister referred to the Conference as pension’s “jamboree”. All was not sweetness and light.
I am here as a freelance journalist to talk to the mood of the Conference and I would say that mood is good. The Conference is jammed to the rafters with people, there is a big Exhibition dominated by consultants and the insurers. There is a substantial fringe of innovators exhibiting in the hall. In 30 years of coming to the PLSA, I have rarely seen such a hub-bub.
But the elephant in every one of the rooms I visited was the budget and how it would impact the working lives of those in attendance.
The Chancellor has let it be known that she is doubling down on her £22bn tax saving promise and will now be going for £40bn through a combination of tax cuts and cuts in departmental. “This is not austerity” we are told, but it looks like a lot of pain whatever you call it,
Any thought that adopting new fiscal rules might result in a backing down on pension tax cuts looks to have been dashed.
On the upside, we were told that by Emma Reynolds that she’d spent the Monday before the event doing what we were doing, pressing the flesh with potential investors keen to pump money into the UK pension system and keen for pensions to fund projects they were looking to bring on. The Government had got Elton John to the pulpit of St Pauls to gild this gilt-edged opportunity.
Except that Government borrowing to co-invest in such projects will not be deemed borrowing but investment so this is not about gilts but about growth.
And the Government is in deadly earnest about getting growth back into pensions
An ongoing problem for Regulators
Jonathan (the other) Reynolds told those at the London Conference that regulation was inhibiting growth and the Prime Minister is reported as saying the same thing
The Pensions Regulator, which is in Liverpool in force, looks like facing another five years of “quietest graveyard” jesting from above. Bim Afolami might as well have switched parties.
How to balance the need to protect members , the PPF and its reputation against accusations that Regulators prevent growth is a tough job,
Amidst all this noise, let’s hear it for pensions
We will no doubt hear on day two , rather more pension orientated conversations. Yesterday at Conference was really not very much about pensions at all. It was almost as if pensions were the sidecar for everyone else’s agenda.
So I look forward to spending today doing what I came here to do – talking about the job in our hands, not other hands.