Darren and Nico remind themselves of their week at #PensionsUKCA26

Posted on October 18, 2026 by henry tapper

For this podcast, we get a second week of undiluted Darren and Nico without guests to undilute them. I quite enjoy them on their own but suspect that it would wear in time.

Here’s the introduction from Darren to this week’s podcast

In this episode Nico Aspinall and I reflect on a busy few days at the Pensions UK Annual Conference in Liverpool.

From ministerial speeches to some lively debates on and off stage, there’s plenty to get our teeth into.

We cover:
🏛️ Politics and pensions: what did Torsten Bell and Helen Whately have to say?
⚖️ Value for money: could the new framework drive herding, stifle innovation and create more problems than it solves?
📏 Scale and consolidation: do we really need a scale test if we’ve got a functioning VFM framework?
💷 Pensions adequacy: is the industry ready to tackle the big questions on contributions, tax and retirement outcomes?
🔎 Pensions dashboards: Darren gets his hands on a live dashboard. But where’s his Civil Service pension?

We also reflect on the Beyond the Bottom Line fringe event hosted by Untamed Consulting and Moore Squared Communications, question whether there’s enough genuine debate at industry conferences, and wonder whether the pensions industry needs to get better at speaking truth to power.

And, as Nico asks, why don’t things just work? 🤷‍♂️

The boys are now a regular hosts of the conference fringe though I should remind them that they did not invent it!

Fringe event at Liverpool

Here’s this week’s podcast sitting beside nearly 200 others.

I can sympathise with the lads for their frustration at the lack of debate. The Conference has seldom been a place for confrontation, when it is – it is the better for it – take the debate between Will Hutton and Jo Cumbo.

The VFM duo are not unique in having contrarian views but most who do found  themselves elsewhere than #PensionsUKAC26.

Darren has included himself this year by paying a reduced fee  for his micro-firm to be a member and a similar fee to have been a delegate. Nico got in under his much larger employer’s payment. We wonder whether they considered this VFM – my guess is that it was – if only for the liquid nourishment.

What both make clear on this pod is that the majority of sessions are sponsored and are advertisements while the plenary events no longer have space for live questions – drawing from those submitted via Slido or whatever.

The result is very little real debate which is what Darren, his firm and 100  others are fostering by having a fringe. All of this  is very good though I suspect that listeners may find the advertisement for the activities for the VFM two – a little long.

The second half of this podcast is a lot better for sticking to the agenda laid out above. Nico is particularly good on the merits of Helen Whately and Torsten Bell – using a VFM scale Helen scores well below average while Torsten scores 9 for doing “the pensions commission’s job”.

It is a noble business carrying this podcast on and I applaud them for it. It is not universally listened to nor are the lads as popular with the public as Tom McPhail. Tom is doing a reasonable job of being shadow pensions minister  (Helen Whately being shadow SOS of DWP). If I was looking for good odds, it might be seeing Tom in parliament before too long .

If the lads wanted to get some controversy on their podcast they could do worse than get Tom McPhail on!

 

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About henry tapper

Founder of the Pension PlayPen,, partner of Stella, father of Olly . I am the Pension Plowman
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2 Responses to Darren and Nico remind themselves of their week at #PensionsUKCA26

  1. Anon's avatar Anon says:
    October 19, 2026 at 7.32

    The economic background is challenging and guidance can be found in the recent report

    The RF report’s key findings are:

    • Higher government borrowing costs from rising gilt yields will lift 2029/30 interest spending by around £14bn above the OBR’s March 2026 forecast of £134.7bn.
    • RF estimates that headroom against the Government’s fiscal target will be halved, from £24bn to £12bn, close to the level that Reeves ran until last year’s Budget. The RF thinks that should be rebuilt to around £20bn, with anything much lower liable to upset the bond markets.
    • Looking back to immediately before the pandemic, the RF reckons that the typical family is £2,900 worse off than if the economy had behaved as expected. This is reflected in almost one-in-five households in the poorest half of the country being already behind on priority bills.
    • Housing support for private renters on low incomes has been frozen since April 2024 with the Local Housing Allowance (LHA) set at the 30% percentile of local rents (measured in the year to September 2023). RF says that average rents have since risen by more than 20%, leaving a family renting a typical two-bedroom home facing a shortfall of nearly £160 a month.

    The RF’s recommendations are:

    • To address rising utility bills (projected to rise in January by 24% to £2,130 by E.ON), a targeted temporary discount on energy prices is needed. This should be aimed at households where no individual has an income above £24,000 and would cost £2bn this year – an average of £175 per eligible household. RF views the alternatives of increasing the Warm Home Discount and topping up the Crisis and Resilience Fund as less attractive options to be used only if their preferred solution cannot be delivered by January.
    • Permanently relink LHA to the 30th percentile of local rents, at a cost of £2.3bn in 2029/30. RH suggests that this could be funded from within the existing working-age welfare budget through an increase to the Universal Credit taper rate from 55% to 58%. By historical standards this would still be a low taper rate – it was 63% until the end of 2021.
    • To rebuild headroom to at least £20bn the government should:
      • Keep to existing cash spending plans, despite their implied tightening in coming years; and
      • Raise around £8bn in tax. Here, the RF opts for some of its familiar targets such as ending Capital Gains Tax exemptions on death and on leaving the UK, lowering the VAT registration threshold, and bringing National Insurance on partnership income in line with employment income.
    • End the freeze on Fuel Duty and replace it with small, predictable increases. The RF notes that under government current plans (which, as ever, assume an end), duty will rise by 13% by April 2027. As duty is currently a pre-VAT 52.95p a litre, a 13% hike (about 8.3p after VAT) looks unrealistic/heroic, a point the OBR has regularly noted when considering notional future fuel duty rises.

    The RF solution is to introduce steady quarterly increases in duty to recoup Rishi Sunak’s 2022 5p a litre discount and then grow the duty rate by about 0.75% a quarter. Call it the boiling frog approach – fuel price volatility is such that the small quarterly increase (about 0.5p a litre) would go unnoticed.

    Reply
  2. Anon's avatar Anon says:
    October 19, 2026 at 7.32

    The RF approach is probably close to what Andy Burnham would like to happen, but the mood music at present seems to point to as little as possible being touched ahead of next year’s Spending Review.

    Reply

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