Reform could ‘go to war on public sector pensions’ as expert issues verdict | Personal Finance | Finance

Final salary pensions, which pay out a guaranteed income to savers when they retire, could be a victim of Reform UK’s attempts to cut what it sees as wasteful local authority spending.

Nick Watt, political editor on the BBC‘s Newsnight, told delegates at the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association’s annual local authority conference that Reform UK had wrestled control of 10 of the 23 councils up for election in England last month.

Mr Watt, who was addressing trustees of pension schemes around the UK at the event in Bedford said pensions were likely to be high on the agenda as the party sought to cut what it claimed was ‘wasteful’ council spending.

He said that Richard Tice, the deputy leader of Reform UK, was also on record pointing out the unfairness of gold-plated public sector pensions.

“Richard Tice is essentially saying, why do public sector workers enjoy defined benefit pensions and all those final salary or career average guarantees when private sector workers have to make do with defined contribution pensions where you know all that what’s in the pot? Not a penny more, not a penny less.”

Mr Watt said: “Richard Tice told The Daily Telegraph last month that he’s prepared to, as he said, go to war with defenders of that pension status quo.

“So what he’s talking about is an end of defined benefit pensions for new recruits, pay cuts for staff on existing defined benefit, defined benefit pensions to help defray the cost to councils are paying what he regards as overly generous pensions.”

The political expert said plans to force pension funds to invest in net zero may also be scrapped. He went on: “They’re asking, are pensions being invested in what they call woke areas, things like net zero, that are then underperforming?”

Mr Watt also pointed out that the BBC election polling guru Professor Sir John Curtice had on the night of the local elections pointed out that if the results were playued out in a general election Reform UK would have 30% of the vote, Labour 20%, the Lib Dems 17% the Conservatives, 15% and the Greens 11%

“The local elections, in fact, signal a revolution that could see a party for the first time in more than a century that is not called Conservative or Labour, bursting through our first past the post system at a Westminster election.”