John Hamilton

The Pensions Regulator has made an announcement of a change of attitude towards private DB pensions. Here is John Hamilton, chair of the Stagecoach Pension Trust, that has led change in the past six months.

My only comments here are that they focus on our past, on the savings we made in the fifty years+ prior to the closure of DB pensions earlier this century.

The spirit that wants to make the £1.2tr the DB pensions hold, invest in the UK needs also be applied to future saving.

Until recently DC had its own endgame with accumulation being the end of the savings game. That is changing, just as DB is changing. I would like to see the passion that we have from DB experts applied to the rest of this century!

We may not be able to return to private sector DB schemes (much as many I speak to still want to) but we can still pay pensions from DC, either through flex and fix drawdown defaults or better still – through collective DC plans that do everything that DB schemes do – but guarantee payments.

I am not quite sure where John Hamilton’s head is. Is he stuck in DB or has he an eye for what happens in the next 50 years (at least)?

I am looking to hear from the progressive DB trustees, managers and sponsors about what their plans are for the generations of staff who have no pensions, only pots!