The reason the lowest paid pay more into pensions than they should.

Posted on October 20, 2026 by henry tapper

This headline from Corporate Adviser is enough right to make people sit up and wonder whether the HMRC has gone crazy and that’s because we get incentives to defer pensions mixed up with tax relief.

When repayments of over payments into pensions by the lowest paid next year, there will be groups of commentators claiming this is an outrageous use of HMRC money. This blog explains why it isn’t and infact is a scandal that impacts one million pension payers who pay more as a percentage of their band earnings than anyone else.

This blog has been complaining that those who were promised to put money away for retirement have been promised an incentive to do so and most people have. The people who have been tax payers when they contribute get the incentive either through payroll or through a complicated system that pays money to save as an amount paid to people for saving (it’s so like tax relief that it’s called that but if you are in a contract based workplace pension or in Nest or People’s or one of the L&G mastertrusts , you’ll get the incentive whether you pay tax or not. The system is known as PRAS (pension relief at source)

All this meant very little till around 2014 when people who weren’t earning enough to pay tax found themselves paying auto-enrolment and if they were in the other type of scheme (known as Net Pay) , they got their incentive unless you didn’t pay income tax. It was complex and it took campaigner Kate Upcraft who ran Marks & Spencer’s payroll to explain, but what was happening was that a group of low-paid people were paying contributions and not getting the incentives they’d been promised.

So it’s not quite “tax relief for the untaxed” but “disincentivised by a system promising incentives“. It means that the £10 is missing for this formula.

This explanation is from the Government in 2012 and became wrong when people found themselves paying in £50 and their bosses £30 and the Government nothing at all. The explanation was wrong, it was not tax relief but an incentive that was due and it was due whether you paid tax or not.

It wasn’t till 2019 that something was done about. First it was Boris Johnson’s manifesto and then it was in a Bill and finally it became a promise in legislation but it has taken 12 years since the problem emerged and 7 years since that manifesto promise for us to get to the verge of an announcement that will look something like this.

What we hope will be coming any day now is this.

The Low Earner’s Pension Payment (LEPP) is the incentive that some people have been missing out on for 12 years. It will be backdated but only to 2024 and the HMRC will be cross with me for publishing something that is due to be a big splash. Here’s the kind of information that 1m savers will get.

If you want to see some more numbers of what the LEPP will be (remember a missed  incentive not tax relief) then you can read this article published yesterday in Corporate Adviser. It’s good of Moira O’Neill to write on this, only this blog appears to have been interested and that’s because I’m on the working group with HMRC looking to get this over the line. As I’ve written before, no money will be sent to the disincentivised till next year (another broken promise as the promise was for payments to start in 2026).

Torsten Bell says that people don’t trust pensions. It’s things like this, affecting over 1m people that make people not trust pensions. It’s not just private pensions, this underpayment of incentives is as much to do with public pensions as private and if we wonder why low paid  people find pensions expensive, it is partly because the lowest paid are paying 5% of pay through auto-enrolment when tax-payers pay a minimum of 4% (see above).

I hope that this will be brought up by the Pensions Commission in February’s report. It is a scandal that is unreported because too few care about low earners.

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Has Nest lost its temper waiting for the Pensions Dashboard?

Posted on October 20, 2026 by henry tapper

The question that Nest Customers like me are asking is why we seem no nearer an announcement of when we’ll all get access to the pensions dashboard as an accurate statement of our retirement finance from pensions.

I suspect that despite being funded by the tax payer via a DWP soft loan , Nest is admitting it cannot wait any longer and will be fulfilling its duty to provide good pensions by offering a “find my pension” service.

While this new service looks commercially sound (bringing small pots to the notice of its customers who may consider consolidating to Nest), it is something that the Pensions Dashboard will be doing.

My experience of Nest’s commitment to the Pensions Dashboard has been mixed. I am one of 14m people who use Nest most of whom have such small pots that they won’t pay much by way of pension but will default to a flex and fix lifetime income. I like them being at the front of the Guided Retirement queue. But I discover that the amount quoted on my trial view of Pensions Dashboard is so far from the amount quoted on my “Nest dashboard” to make me think that they are still some way from providing a proper contribution to the Pensions Dashboard. I’m prepared to forgive them but suspect that their technology linking the Nest Dashboard to the Pensions Dashboard is proving rather hard.

But this is different, this looks to me like Nest pointing out that one in four (3.5m of us) have lost pots. Is it any surprise that the nation has lost trust in the pension system if its Government owned workplace pension cannot do something about this? They can, though they have to partner with Pensions Lab to do so.

I went on my dashboard to navigate to the advertised new service. I found it easily enough.

I found an introduction that made sense as an introduction to Pension Lab

But this looks a long way from the pensions dashboard you’re making your way to once you’ve verified your details and consented for Nest to give your details to the fintech Pensions Lab.

Here are the firms who’ve signed up to help Pensions Lab, your pensions may be on this list but there are only 11 providers here and what they’re offering is pension pots not pensions.

More than a third of those who have signed up are owned by Standard Life and though the mighty People’s and L&G are there , Smart and WTW and Scottish Widows and several others aren’t. You have to give details of your history of employers to find out what you’ve got.

This is as far as I can navigate because I am nearly 65 years old and have had 13 employers since 1979 when I had my first job. Isn’t this the labour that the Pensions Dashboard was supposed to cut out?

I don’t have anything against Nest adding this service but I don’t think it’s going to restore trust in pensions. For many people , the Pensions Dashboard should do that but will we ever get it?

Nest’s launch of what its calling its pension dashboard is an admission that the dashboard is some way away.  It is Pension Lab’s dashboard dressed up in Nest’s robes but it’s really another firm that’s doing the work.

Scott Phillips and his team at Pensions Lab are good news all round but  I am mystified why Nest with 14 million mouths to feed can’t do this work themselves. We live in an age of AI, when will  artificial intelligence be up to finding us our pension pots?

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The security of equity in our houses may be under threat.

Posted on October 19, 2026 by henry tapper

Is this a house price blip or a house price crash?

The BBC report that…

Home sellers cut asking prices on more than 3,000 properties a day on average in Britain during September, according to figures from Rightmove shared exclusively with the BBC.

The property website said the total was the highest of any month for 15 years and was driven, in part, by a glut of homes on the market and some sellers setting unrealistic expectations.

The proportion of listed homes that eventually had a price cut peaked in 2023 and has remained relatively high since.

Property portals say buyers are now having to be choosy, with many working to a tight budget as mortgage rates have risen to three-year highs.

“Once a home has been on the market for a while and then has a price reduction, some buyers start asking questions, even when there is nothing wrong with the property,” said Colleen Babcock of Rightmove.

“In a market with so much choice, first impressions matter.”

That sounds like a property agent promoting its marketing rather than the over-ambitious of others. If that is the case what we’re seeing today is just a blip, but it’s a blip that started three years ago (if Rightmove data is correct).

Rightmove data said the average price reduction was nearly 7% – the equivalent of nearly £21,000 cut from a typically valued home.

Its data showed that homes that had a price reduction typically took 119 days to find a buyer, compared with 39 days for those listed at one price.

The proportion of listed homes that had a price reduction stood at 34% in last month, only slightly lower than the recent peak of 36% seen in September 2023.

Rival property portal Zoopla said that buyers were in the driving seat, and were being more cautious and selective about the properties they viewed.

This sounds like it could develop into a property crash. The last I can remember of real concern was with the ending of dual MIRAS and then MIRAS altogether. These were tax reliefs on borrowings up to £30,000 and it was back in the 1980s and early 1990s when the impact was fealt.

I’m not saying this with a smug grin on my face, my family has property, I have property. I know the worst hit property values and they are in London and are leasehold (flats). I have been writing a lot about property prices on a pension blog because many of us still see our house as a pension (we can remortgage if we run short of income).

You can’t access liquidity if the valuation doesn’t stack up for what you need.

I’m sorry to go back to my favorite bit of financial advice , given to me in 1984.

Affordable housing?

A purchase is not at a fixed price if bought with leveraged finance. If we are borrowing more than 90% of the purchase price our purchase is hugely leveraged and those who think that we can increase pension contributions need to consider the impact of mortgage rates on those who are are paying up to three times the rate five years ago.

With mortgage rates at a three-year high, Zoopla said buyers needed to keep monthly mortgage payments affordable.

So, while the number of homes for sale was up 5% in September compared with a year earlier, the number of sales agreed had fallen by 9% over the same period, its figures showed.

September also tends to be the month with the most cuts to asking prices as sellers often want to complete a sale by the end of the year.

There’s a lot  in this BBC article that is advice for buyers and sellers to protect themselves, But this looks like a crash for many

‘Our flat has been for sale for four years’: Why is the market so weak?

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Deja Vu at Royal Mail for 120,000 workers?

Posted on October 19, 2026 by henry tapper

It’s nearly a decade since we avoided a strike at Royal Mail. It involved a sympathetic Royal Mail management, a powerful voice from the CWU and a large injection of pension savvy from consultants. Jon Millidge, Terry Pullinger , Hilary Salt and Derek Benstead remain friends and inspiration to many who now aim to take forward the collective pension they pioneered in the UK.

The style of CDC they adopted suits a workforce that is stable and a service that is reliable but I fear that both are under threat.

Anyone trusting in reasonable certainty in delivery of surface mail must now consider digital alternatives for all but the few who don’t have email or social media.

The postal monopoly has largely completed changes to the way in which it delivers second-class mail. Rounds that were conducted six days a week are now completed every other weekday. Many I speak to estimate a week as a reasonable expectation for a second class letter to be delivered. This is not people friendly either for customer of pensions. The Times tells us

the Communication Workers Union (CWU), which represents tens of thousands of Royal Mail workers, has withdrawn its support over claims that working practice changes are a “major factor” behind about 400 people leaving the company every week.

This the same CWU that worked out a way forward over a wage for postal workers in retirement that was based on a stable workforce. The CWU are going further

The dispute intensified last week when Dave Ward, the CWU general secretary, alleged that Royal Mail was on the “brink of collapse” and accused the company of a “self-inflicted recruitment and retention crisis”.

I hope that new owner, Daniel Kretinsky can stop this dispute from escalating. I have three concerns, firstly for posties who are an important part of every local community for what they do and what they represent. Secondly for a business that is a legitimate alternative to Amazon, DHK and other delivery firms. Thirdly for collective pensions that can point to Royal Mail as a flag bearer for pensions over pots in what has been called CDC.

“The volume of concerns raised by MPs, customers and the media demonstrates the scale of the challenge Royal Mail still faces in restoring quality of service standards.”

Kretinsky acquired Royal Mail last year for £3.6bn through the investment vehicle EP Group. Representatives for EP wrote to the CWU leadership on Thursday “confirming that they will be travelling to London on Tuesday to meet with the union”.

The CWU  said there would be two points in its negotiation : the growing recruitment and retention crisis at Royal Mail and fixing those delivery offices where the rollout of the new second-class post regime was “not working”.

Royal Mail say that they are currently recruiting 480 people a week. That strikes me as high turnover for a low-turnover business and a worry for the trustees of its collective pension scheme.

 

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“Irresponsible behaviour from providers” – what’s Torsten Bell referring to?

Posted on October 19, 2026 by henry tapper

Like many people, I suspect I’m fed up with the annual trauma that surrounds budgets. I’m sure that it’s the same in other sectors but financial services is particularly vulnerable to rumours because so much of what is sold is sold on tax-breaks.

There are some pretty straightforward lobbying by senior figures in financial services that may not suit the current Government but suits the readership of the Times and those who are purchasing product from our large insurers. This looks legitimate.

Amanda Blanc, CEO of Aviva has this warning to the Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer John Healy in the Sunday Times.

Reducing or retargeting pension tax relief may (or may not) produce revenue today, but it definitely risks shrinking the pool of patient capital available to finance the investment and growth of tomorrow. Worse still, it can limit the size of pension pots that people rely on to fund their retirement.

None of these measures offers a single dramatic solution. That is precisely the point. Britain doesn’t need yet another slogan about growth; it needs practical reforms that make it easier for households to build long-term financial security, for institutions to invest and for good projects and businesses to obtain capital.

The article may have been sent to the Times before Torsten Bell’s speech to the Pensions UK Conference but pension providers have been accused by Bell of fuelling savers’ fears around potential tax changes to generate publicity ahead of the autumn Budget. The article is only one of many that we read about pension taxation and may be annoying to a Pensions Minister looking to reform the pension system (not, so far,  its taxation). T

Torsten Bell has said some providers havedemonstrated “irresponsible behaviour” in an attempt to secure media coverage.

Bell warned at Pensions UK Conference that  the coverage had the potential to change outcomes for savers and urged provider communications teams to consider the wider interests of the pensions industry.

Bell who had spoken of the need to build trust in pensions, said:

“People working in the pensions industry should understand that we should be rebuilding trust.”

That means not choosing cheap routes to publicity, but instead trying to build the brand of pensions.”

The brand of pensions is taking a big beating from younger generations.

The budget’s position on private pension taxation is unlikely to make much difference to ordinary people.

The budget’s less than a fortnight away and then we’ll find out if tax breaks are limited. If the changes are introduced it will be those who benefit from tax relief who will suffer. The biggest beneficiaries of pension tax relief are the high earners.

There is a  strong argument to reform pension taxation to make it more of an incentive for everyone. This rather than pension taxation being biased towards those who pay higher rates of tax relief.  If the argument is that less money would go into  SIPPs and other forms of wealth management tools, then it is very expensive money to the lower rate tax-payer. It’s the wrong kind of subsidy for me.

All the same, I think it highly unlikely that pensions will have tax relief’s taken away and I do hope that we stop speculating about bad news and focus on the reforms that are here and those that are to come.

Maybe this is legitimate if predictable complaining

Amanda Blanc has got  form in trying to control what goes on before budgets , having campaigned  in August that the Chancellor not to fly pension taxation kites before the budget as she claimed Rachel Reeves’ team did last year

It looks as if the Chancellor has picked up on this criticism. I suspect Amanda Blanc and John Healy are on the same page

But is this from AJ Bell?

Blanc’s calls look different to calls for the Chancellor to make pre budget promises about tax detail – AJ Bell  has some public lobbying aimed at  the Chancellor which is more difficult for the Treasury. AJ Bell is a wealth manager, lobbying mostly for SIPPs for the wealthy.

This to me is not responsible. As Nico Aspinall says on his and Darren Philp’s podcast, declaring what will be exempt before one budget sets a precedent for future budgets. If there is a declaration this year and no declaration next year, there will be speculation that the sacred pension tax relief is at risk again.

There really are many more important things that we can devote our time to do than worrying about how pension taxation will change in the budget. I’m with Torsten Bell, all this speculation isn’t doing anyone much good, especially tax-payers who distrust the pension industry.

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What can UK pensions admin learn from Aussie’s Novigi? Tomorrow -Tuesday; 10.30

Posted on October 19, 2026 by henry tapper

Kevin Fernandez joins the coffee morning

We’ve been approached by Novigi to talk with us at the Pension PlayPen’s event tomorrow Tuesday, details of how to join us are at the bottom.

I’ve just been told we’ll be joined by Kevin Fernandez from Brisbane

He’ll be pitching up with Andrew Griffioen (of Apex which is  now part of  Novigi)

Can Australia’s technical administrators teach us how to run savings plans. how do they feel about pensions? Is the Super going to work for people who have pots but no retirement wage?

How can the huge success of Super help us with our private system?

Whatever you thought is impossible will shortly have been done. Such is the speed at which artificial intelligence can sort things out.
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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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Why don’t bosses ask staff what they want for a lifetime’s payroll deductions?

Posted on October 18, 2026 by henry tapper

I can’t comment directly because I was not in this meeting but it fascinates me that a senior lawyer, a representative of an employer and a union man are chaired by a Proprietor of a CDC scheme. The quotes and photo are all from a Professional Pension article written by Alex Levy

I don’t blame employers , feeling wary, they ought to be at this early stage of development.

While I can understand nervousness, the message from actuarial consultant’s modelling seems to be getting through.

I find it easy to understand that

In a snap poll conducted during the session with 80 respondents, 76% said better outcomes for members was the main attraction of CDC.

I find it harder to understand this

“The most important thing is that trustees, your employer, and your proprietor are aligned that there are trade-offs.”

If value for money to the member is a “better outcome“, what do we mean by value for money in pensions?

If value for money to the member is the pot and the freedom of tying up your money, then I would side with DC but all the evidence is that ordinary people when asked about pensions start with the state pension and consider their workplace pension in the same breath.

If there is time to do a consultation isn’t that time now? If you are one of the 76% employers who accept that outcomes are better with CDC , then shouldn’t be the question to staff be whether they are prepared to take a worse outcome to get freedom from pensions?

I am aware that the Pensions Regulator doesn’t want pension managers telling staff that collective pensions are better or worse,  then can they say that after consultation the staff told them one was best?

I’m not surprised that there’s a feeling that collective pension’s are anything but simple. Royal Mail’s structure is that of a CARE DB scheme and suits people with a lifetime with that employer.

This is not likely to copied by a multi-employer where careers are spread between work for a number of employers. They will better suit a system of pension purchase at prices which are adjusted every month or week or even every day. This is the way to avoid one generation of workers subsidising another.

As I once said at an NAPF Conference  (or so I’m told )

To suppose that we are saving to be wealthy is probably a bit far-fetched for most people. Getting a fair and well-administered pension is enough for most of us (the Pensions Regulator can look after VFM)

As for administrators, I noticed that Aptia were sponsoring a session on the first day of the conference. They seem bullish to be an administrator of CDC.

My favorite phrase from the Professional Pensions article was  from Torsten Bell who apparently found a

 suspiciously keen” group of “CDC enthusiasts” in the market.

Judging by the polls I’ve seen from both the Aptia and this CDC session, there are a large number of us!

 

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In a month I’m 65. I haven’t got a pension – just two pots – I’ve lost my trust!

Posted on October 18, 2026 by henry tapper

 

What in heaven’s name does the headline mean?

I’m 65 and I’m at the end of the road. What’s the map telling me I’m getting as a pension from Nest and L&G?

Katherine Photiou assures me that she’s on the road to getting my trust

I like Katherine Photiou and I like Gavin Perera -Betts but if we are to get back trust in private pensions we are going to need to go a little faster than this.

Photiou added members’ trust in the system will be “undermined” when the system “doesn’t join up” and when the government, industry and regulators “confuse everyone”, as that will “erode trust”.

“You can erode trust with a slow transfer or a confusing statement.“

She concluded that it is “incumbent” on the industry to ensure the reforms laid out in the roadmap are deliverable and  Perera-Betts added it is “non-negotiable” for the industry to deliver them.   (from Professional Pensions)

I’m sorry but it’s not connecting systems that will make me trust my DC providers. It’s the whole private pension system that’s letting me down.

 

When this Government talks about getting back trust it is not incompetence in administrating pensions or giving us duff information that’s on their minds. I am  frustrated by Nest’s hopeless information delivered to my pension dashboard while I find Legal & General really rather good. But so what? That’s only about my car sitting in the garage! I want to go for a very long drive and I haven’t got a key let alone a  roadmap!

It is receiving my wage in retirement that will get back my trust. It is not providers connecting their systems!

What I want from my two DC pots with Nest and L&G is a pension that allows me to plan my retirement and right now, when I go on my Nest and L&G websites there is nothing that tells me what I’m going to get as a pension.

It is not the adequacy, it’s the fact that there’s no way that I can tell how much pension I’m going to get (I’m 65 in 24 days- I would like to know!).

Whether to pull my two pots into one is a “nice to”, what I want is a statement that tells me how I get a pension like the state pension – one that goes up with the cost of living and one that I can take at 65 or leave to 67 (and get a bit more for waiting). I want to know that my common law wife can get a pension if I die (I nearly did) and I want to know whether I can swap some pension for tax free cash and the impact of doing so on my income.

None of these very simple questions is answered on my Nest or L&G page of their website.

My experience isn’t unique. The vast majority of people who have put away a proportion of their salary and bonus for retirement, have done so to get a regular income that protects them from a rise in the cost of living. When I get paper statements from L&G and Nest they do offer me a Statutory Money Purchase Illustration but you have to be on the inside to know that there’s no cost of living protection nor a pension quoted for the wife. It’s the amount of income I can get from an annuity (sort of) but it’s a level annuity.

So here’s my message to Gavin and Katherine. What I want is the stuff on the right hand side of this slide not the left hand side.

I don’t want a roadmap that takes me through little villages , I want a motorway to the big town. What conversations between yourselves about small pots, consolidation, pot valuations and your idea of VFM mean nothing to ordinary people. Ordinary people want a simple way of knowing what they’re going to get from January to June and June to December for however many of them they’ve got to live.

This is not about me finding  I haven’t paid enough into the pot, I want to trust a system that now I’m 65 makes sense.  I can’t and that pi*@es me off.

 

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Finding risk in everything is not helping us! It’s a good time to be optimistic.

Posted on October 18, 2026 by henry tapper

The news on our economy is unexpectedly good. The FT, not known for being optimistic is well..optimistic about the UK economy

Scroll to the bottom of this blog to see why our economy is feeling buoyant to the FT;  So is Will Hutton.

Actually the news from the IMF is that consumers are behaving as if we are going bust while in practice we are doing much better than most other countries we call our peers.

It’s said in that little bit of commentary beneath the picture. We do not have the problems of America and Europe where there is violence in thought and in behaviour.

We have a tolerant society that is feeling safe in its leadership for the first time in a decade. This is a good time to be optimistic.

I say this at a time when our pension pots are growing faster than any sustained period I can remember. The resilience of our private sector DB funds is partly due to high discount rates but also growth in what’s left of their growth stocks and those few who are still open (Rail, USS and LGPS) are doing very nicely thank you.

The one area that is giving people reason to be worried is residential property, where prices are falling and where prices are likely to fall further as mortgages stay high and increase for those coming off low fixed rate deals. Housing is expensive to rent and it’s expensive for those in flats who are being rippled off by service charges and ground rents. Housing is expensive even for pensioners who are borrowing against their equity (usually to meet the cost of care).

As I said yesterday, you can’t buy a sausage with a brick and goodness knows , sausages are expensive in these inflationary days. The  thing that protects older people’s futures is inflation proofed income which is what we get (times 3) from the state pension and will get from our DC guided retirement and our CDC pensions.

What is needed is optimism about pensions and trust in the private and public pension system. The public system of unfunded defined benefit pensions is trusted (despite Capita’s problems) but there is little trust in private pensions. It is no good paying more into DC savings plans, it’s like pouring water into a broken bucket.

What is needed for this country is optimism that in the long term we will do well, will find ways to use changes in technology, in climate change protection and in personal productivity to afford the kind of retirement we hope for and have lost trust in.

Alongside housing and healthcare, the pensions system is one of the three things that needs to improve in the years to come and it’s no good for people who are coming to the end of their careers drawing up the bridge and denying our children access to the castle where we sit. That’s how I think of de-risking everything!

We should not de-risk our economy by refusing to invest in the future and we should use the capital we have within our funded pension system with confidence and optimism. We must stop sending money off to the other side of the pond as if they are the generator’s of growth. Rather than pouring money into a broken bucket we must mend or replace the bucket and use it.

That means organising among other things a kind of fund to pay collective pensions with a simple single bucket that waters everything in the garden fairly (do I have to explain what watering the garden means in pension terms? Thank you – that’s no!). If not pensions from a single collective bucket, a lot of smaller buckets that while less efficient can be personalised and used for individual needs,

I’m sorry to go on about this but it seems important to get the big picture from time to time and it seems to be a good time now. Now is as good as it has been for our economy and though it is horrid in a lot of places in the world, we are lucky to be living in Britain.

Appendix – two reasons driving FT’s optimism about our economy

The first is our professional services – benefiting from rollout of AI

The second is that we are advising the world creating a services trade surpluses. We are not making much but we are using our brains and selling them well to others.

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