I have been saying all year that our Private Pensions System is off key with what ordinary people want. We are currently intent on giving people pots of money in return for what they saved. But people did not save for a pot but for a pension – a wage in retirement that could reduce or eliminate their need to work.
No one’s ever thought that private pensions are the only thing that will make our retirement income but for most people they are part of what they need to pay the bills and enjoy a long and stress less later life.
I was really pleased to hear the Pensions Minister limit his role to making the private pensions system adequate. It is not the responsibility of politicians to tell employers and staff to save 12% of total pay as the Pensions UK and ABI mantra has been. It is a pension minister’s job to make the pension system adequate for private employers and their staff.
What Torsten Bell called for to restore trust in what we do.
My take from this the Minister’s central slide is that the DWP has made its mind up. It cannot provide an adequate retirement from private pensions alone , but it can put in place a system that makes sense to ordinary people.
So what’s going on in pensions right now? There’s a lot of speculation about Guided Retirement and default decumulation but I’m not talking about 2029.
I’m talking about right now and asking were pensions properly represented at #PensionsukAC26. It was at the heart of what Torsten Bell called for in his speech
Hunger in the hall for pensions not pots!
This is what a senior consultant from Gallagher thought.
This is what our longest ever pensions minister thought.
But there was one statement in the three days that caught my imagination. It was from an outstanding speech from Torsten Bell.
For our pay today to earn a proper wage in retirement, we need an adequate private pensions system. That includes CDC as an option for employers.