“Why is Farage doing this to the people of Clacton? Are its voters really expected to become props in the great drama of Nigel and His Money? He seems to want to use his constituents as human shields to deflect questions about his financial links to convicted criminals and crypto kings. So he can say, when asked: ‘questions about my honesty were resolved in a by-election!’ This would not work for a second: but it’s the only card he seems to think he has left to play.”

This is from Fraser Nelson. He is a Times journalist and the pressure on Farage and so on his party is from a right-wing journalist. He remarks as this blog has, that the odds for Binface winning are short enough to take him seriously as a candidate, if not in any other way – thankyou!

Count Binface stands in a long British tradition of using humour and satire as a check to egotism and pomposity. Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer.

That’s 5-1 against Binface, 1-5 on Reform. Betfair doesn’t think Farage will lose the by-election but losing credibility with the nation looks odds on too.

Here is where the Clacton by-election matters to us pension people. The public think of Farage as a one trick pony, that trick (and Reform’s) being immigration. This is as ridiculous to me as Binface’s headline program

And after all, are Count Binface’s policies – £2 kebabs – any less ridiculous than Reform’s plans to save £234 billion (!) from cutting immigration?

But were Reform to be returned as Government and Farage our Prime Minister , this is the pension policy we could expect. Thanks to Professional Pensions’ latest round up published at party election time last year/

Reform UK’s election manifesto – Our Contract with You, published in June last year – pledged a review of the UK’s pension system and unveiling a new ownership model for national infrastructure (see: Reform manifesto pledges to review pension system ‘riddled’ with complexity,

The manifesto said the current pensions system in the UK was “riddled with complexity, huge cost and poor returns leading to less uptake”.

It added the UK’s system compares unfavourably to other nations such as Australia, which “do savings and pensions much better and cheaper than we do and from a much younger age”.

The manifesto also outlined the party’s proposal to introduce a new ownership model for critical national infrastructure – bringing 50% of each utility into public ownership, with the other 50% being owned by UK pension funds, which the party argued would bring “new expertise” and “better management”.

It also said it would “end the Mineworkers Pension Scandal” – noting it accepted the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee 2021 recommendations in full to amend the Mineworkers Pension Scheme arrangements so that all of the scheme’s surpluses accrue to the mineworkers.

This is an area the Labour Party also campaigned on and has since actioned – announcing in the 2024 Autumn Budget that the government would release the Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme (MPS) Investment Reserve to give an uplift to around 112,000 former coalminers.

On the subject of the environment, Reform UK’s manifesto pledged to scrap net-zero objectives and claimed the ambition to reach net zero was “damaging our livelihoods and the economy”, as well as “costings tens of thousands of jobs” and “increasing inflation”. The party also claimed scrapping net-zero commitments would save “some £30bn a year for the next 25 years, possibly more”.

LGPS reform

Reform UK’s manifesto concerns over complexity, cost, and the level of investment returns have since been vocalised strongly when it comes to the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS).

Speaking earlier this week, Reform UK called for the sprawling LGPS to reduce the “egregious” fees it pays fund managers by moving assets into low-cost global equity index and bond trackers.

The Financial Times (FT) reported on 1 September that Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice said that local authorities in England and Wales were paying at least £1bn more than they should in fees to fund managers, with inadequate performance costing between £8bn and £10bn annually over the past five years.

Reform UK said it analysed the LGPS schemes of the 13 administering authorities it controls – benchmarking them against a portfolio 75% invested in passive global equities and 25% invested in global bond trackers.

It said the 13 funds had underperformed by an average of 1.9% a year since 2019 – adding that the average fee charged by managers was 0.5%, what Tice said was an overpayment of roughly £265m. He called for fees to be capped at about 0.1%.

Tice said “for too long, British taxpayers have been taken for mugs” – describing the expenditure by pension funds as “enormous” and the fees as “frankly egregious”.

The FT further analysed Reform UK’s idea in Toby Nangle’s article on 3 September – Reform UK has a simple plan to fix local pension performance. But are things really that bad?

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Reform UK’s proposals have been met with significant pushback from the pensions industry, which has defended the LGPS’s performance and highlighted the ongoing progress of the existing pooling arrangements.

Significant policy gaps

Aside from its manifesto and its recent statements on the LGPS, Reform UK has said little about various other areas of pensions.

The party has not, as yet, articulated a clear policy on the future trajectory of the state pension age. It has also not addressed the issue of the triple-lock – with Reform UK leader Nigel Farage refusing to commit to the policy in May, noting it was not a subject the party had addressed as yet but promised it would be an area it would look at before the next election.

Reform UK has also not provided any information on its stance on the current auto-enrolment framework – including any views on contribution levels, the earnings trigger, or the potential for expansion to include lower earners and the self-employed.

Aside from its manifesto pledges above, the party has not set out any views on the regulation of private sector defined benefit or defined contribution schemes, including on areas such as funding requirements or surplus sharing, on the Mansion House Accord or the government’s DC megafund proposals.

Reform UK has not made any public comment on the current system of tax relief on pension contributions.

Farage has, however, reportedly told allies that a policy priority would be to shake up regulation of the City, including stripping the Financial Conduct Authority of its role in regulating banks.

To which I could add conversations I have had with Reform politicians including a two hour chat over a pint or four with Farage himself. He is genuinely good company. He is an old school stock-broker type who sees pensions as wealth and benefits as a means of funding scroungers. These are popular views amongst those who do not think too hard about being “hard up”.

I am with Count Binface. Reform needs reform and Farage is getting a lesson in humility.