I am now back from Scotland, I had a positive time up there in the company of people who were running their DB pension schemes on. These included the universities at Belfast and Cardiff who have schemes for their non-teaching staff, I met with one of the coal miners schemes (the one for the bosses) and of course there was the mighty LGPS. As all these schemes are funded, I do not see the argument that DB is dead as having much substance. The arguments from schemes that are closed and in surplus is that there is more for them to do than give their growth up in return for the certainty of insurance.

I have to say that the contribution from the Pension Regulation did not quite match expectation, we are not getting encouragement for pensions to return, just a diffidence about encouraging lock down (an improvement on the past 20 years it is true).

Returning on the last leg of my journey back I could listen to a positive press conference from Trump and Starmer with a UK focus on the economic greatness of our universities, Britain’s advances in computing technology and the possibility of a new step forward for the British economy. How good it would be if the remains of our funded DB pensions, the progress of our DC pensions (not least from pot to pension) and the advance of both through superfunds and CDC, could happen by 2030. It is a date locked into many people’s minds and is fixed to the PLSA October Conference in Manchester.

I found a group of people at this event who are either directly or through funds, looking to take advantage of the advances in computing (we call it loosely “AI” but they refer it to “Deep” technology and “Quantum Technology”. I have taken away brochures and want to know more – this is what pensions can fund and it allows to be both British and world leading – what is wrong about that?

We heard too about power and how it can be connected to data centres so that this new technology can be developed without failures. Water and electricity in the right place at the right team need good connectors, sound policy and a public who understand what the disruption is all about. We need to be the champions of the companies that the American giants are investing in. That is why I am proud to have associated myself with companies that do this both in the Scottish Conference and in broader life.

It also had Sarah Smart who has been a leading force at TPR until earlier this year and who has more than her fair of trauma to cope with. Could there be a happier sight than this.

Sarah Smart on her way home!

This Conference had many young people selling to it and older people buying, that is how these things are financed. Sometimes we forget that the people who organised these events are taking risks. The firm that organised this, DG publishing – deserve thanks and praise. I am saying this , partly out of gratitude and partly because I hope it is run next year (as it has for several years) and partly because I would like to be a part.

A positive week for us in pensions and (after bad weeks for this Government) a good week for our leaders. I missed the helicopters flying in and out of Windsor but am proud to have a view from our patio of the castle!