Reform UK takes aim at pensions overhaul during pitch to business chiefs

Reform UK would look to overhaul public-sector pensions, the party’s deputy leader Richard Tice has said.

At an event in the City of London, Mr Tice told business chiefs the party also wants to lead a period of economic growth akin to the so-called Big Bang of the 1980s which happened under the Thatcher government.

Reform has been on a charm offensive with leaders from the world of business in recent weeks as the party aims to establish economic credibility after axing a series of promises to implement sweeping tax cuts made at the election.

Speaking at Bloomberg’s headquarters in central London, Mr Tice said: “We have to again ask really serious questions about the way we do pensions in this country.”

The liability for defined public sector benefit schemes is “growing at somewhere between £30 billion and £50 billion a year”, Mr Tice said.

“I don’t think it is unreasonable to sit down with the unions and to say ‘look, for new employees we can do this differently’.

“The private sector did this 25 years ago. But if we are not even prepared to have that discussion then we are just not going to make the progress that we need because that increasing liability … is completely unsustainable.”

Unions have reportedly warned that shifting towards defined contribution schemes, seen as less generous, could cost billions.

Mr Tice also set out his party’s aims at growing the economy and insisted regulatory reform was needed to see this through.

He said: “Here we are … 39 years on after the Big Bang. My contention to you is that now is actually the time for the big reform.

“We have to stand back and say, ‘How’s it going? What can we do better?’ and, in a sense, we’ve actually got a bit of time.

“We’re in early stages of an electoral cycle, so we can actually ask some really sort of big picture questions with a clean sheet of paper, almost like a sort of brainstorming session in the boardroom.”

The senior Reform MP also suggested politicians need to challenge the Bank of England more often, including the make-up of its monetary policy committee and whether it should be given a “mandate” for growth.