Tice said: “You’re not asking about the much, much bigger issue, right — which is, how long can we carry on offering defined benefit pensions to all public sector workers?

“That is a much, much bigger issue that is not properly discussed in Westminster, in the media and so on. All [these issues], they’re all related. They’re all important, and they all fit into a jigsaw.”

Tice said his party is “at base camp on Everest” in examining state spending and wants to ask “fundamental questions about all of these big issues.”

Asked what he thought might replace defined benefit pensions for public sector workers in the future, Tice replied: “That’s where patience is a virtue. These are such big issues — you don’t answer them in a day, a week, frankly, or a month.”

David Robbins asks some serious questions about what this would mean to British public pensions.

Four intertwined issues here:
1. Total reward levels for public sector employees and how this affects recruitment/retention.
2. Balance of pensions vs pay within that.
3. DB vs DC. This is about who shoulders risk rather than what is affordable on a best estimate – DC… https://t.co/YCkAhpFU7D

— David Robbins (@David_J_Robbins) November 3, 2025

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Reform UK has more than public pensions in their sites

Dan Bloom of Politico has another question about Reform’s pension onslaught

Under lock and key – the crown jewel of the state pension?

Politico says Reform UK’s radical change to the biggest pension promise – the triple lock of the state pension – is clearly needing political intervention but cannot say more than that.

The triple lock is big, all right. The Conservatives introduced it in 2012 to reverse an historic decline and tackle pensioner poverty. But it will now cost the state an extra £15.5 billion a year by 2029, three times more than expected. If it continued until the 2070s it would take up an extra 1.5 percent of U.K. GDP, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility watchdog.

But talking to Reform spokespeople Dan Bloom is far from clear on Reform’s intention.

The Times is equally unclear.  The same can be said by the Times. Here is Aubrey Allegrettit – the Times’s  political correspondent

Nigel Farage has cast doubt over the future of the pensions triple lock under a Reform government, saying he could not predict if it would still be viable.

In a speech rowing back on vast spending plans and tax cuts in the party’s last election manifesto, Farage said some of the substantial changes promised were no longer “sensible”.

Pensions triple lock

Farage broke from the cross-party consensus by refusing to back the pension triple lock.

Introduced by Lord Cameron and George Osborne, it ensures that the state pension rises by average earnings growth, inflation or 2.5 per cent — whichever is higher.

The policy has commanded support from the main political parties at each election since and is seen as a way of winning over older people, who are more likely to vote.

But asked if he would retain the triple lock and Reform’s promise to raise the tax-free allowance from £12,500 to £20,000, Farage said: “I cannot tell you what the state of the economy will be as the next general election approaches.”

I’m with David Robbins.

Tice on public pensions, Farage on the State Pension, there are a lot of contradictory pensions and very little sense. If Reform UK are going to have any impact on the pension debate they are going to need to stop shouting headlines and start explaining what rolling back the public pension system, de-linking the state pension from the triple lock and what we will get instead.

David Robbins is asking the questions on Twitter, I’m asking them on this blog, we are getting half-baked cakes that crumble when we ask any questions. The Tice/Farage show that happened on Monday does not get them into the Bank of England.

Tice and Farage, as close as they get to the Bank of England

The sky is clear behind them in this photo, but nothing else is for this political duo.