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Craig Berry

Craig Berry

I am Pensions Policy Officer in the TUC’s Economic and Social Affairs Department. I am responsible for private sector and state pensions, and will be blogging on pensions policy as well as fiscal and economic issues more generally. I joined the TUC in 2012, and my previous jobs include Policy Advisor at HM Treasury, Lecturer at the University of Warwick, and Head of Policy at the International Longevity Centre. I completed my PhD, on globalisation and British trade policy, at the University of Sheffield in 2008.

  • Pensions & Investment

    £144 is not enough to realise the benefits of a simple state pension

    17th June 2013 — Filed under: Pensions & Investment

    Craig Berry Craig Berry

    The Pensions Bill will have its second reading in the House of Commons today. I’ve already written about various aspects of the Bill on this blog, but the most important is of course the creation of a ‘single tier’ state pension in 2016. The government is embarking on a radical reform of the state pension system that will merge the basic and second state pensions (BSP and S2P).

    Of course, most people who have not yet retired do not understand state pensions, so will hardly notice the difference. In my view, what will matter to them when they reach state pension age, as for pensioners today, is the weekly amount they will receive. On this, the proposed starting rate for single tier, £144 per week in 2012/13 terms, falls significantly short of providing for a decent and sustainable state pension.

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  • Pensions & Investment

    The Pensions Bill’s Beecroft Clause

    14th June 2013 — Filed under: Pensions & Investment

    Craig Berry Craig Berry

    It didn’t get much attention at the time, lost as it was under a hail of dogmatic and poorly conceived recommendations, but one of the main ideas in Adrian Beecroft’s 2011 report advocating a bonfire of employment regulations involved doing away with pensions auto-enrolment for small employers.

    Thankfully, we aren’t there yet – but the Pensions Bill, which has its second reading on Monday, contains an explosive clause which could allow a future Conservative majority government to deliver on Beecroft’s disturbing vision.

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  • Economics

    Pensions regulation under pressure from a government failing on the economy

    12th June 2013 — Filed under: Economics, Pensions & Investment

    Craig Berry Craig Berry

    Starved of a genuine strategy for economic growth, the government is again looking for a favour from the world of pensions. The best example is the establishment of the Pensions Infrastructure Platform by several large pension schemes, to direct additional funds into infrastructure investment, at the government’s behest. This is a worthwhile endeavour by the schemes themselves, but the government is desperate that it also makes up for its own failings on capital investment.

    We now have another example, with the Pensions Bill likely to compel the Pensions Regulator (TPR) to consider how its defined benefit pension funding regime can ‘minimise any adverse impact on the sustainable growth of an employer’.

    This is a hugely controversial measure.

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  • International

    Finally, some good news from Europe

    24th May 2013 — Filed under: International, Pensions & Investment

    Craig Berry Craig Berry

    Pension stakeholders in the UK breathed a collective sigh of relief yesterday when the European Commission abandoned its plans to apply Solvency II-style insurance regulations to defined benefit pension funds.

    Trade unions had strongly opposed the Commission’s plans – as had employers, the industry and the government. We opposed the plans in principle, because the Commission had seriously misunderstood the nature of UK pensions provision, and our protection regime, and over-estimated the feasibility of cross-border provision. And we opposed them on practical grounds after an initial impact study by the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) indicated possible solvency requirement costs of £400 billion for UK pension funds.

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  • Pensions & Investment

    Pensions consensus at a crossroads

    15th May 2013 — Filed under: Pensions & Investment

    Craig Berry Craig Berry

    The introduction of automatic enrolment and the coalition government’s proposals for a single tier state pension appears to have secured the onset of a new era in UK pensions provision. Although some of the details underneath both policies are problematic, we now have a unique opportunity for progressive change that we must grasp.

    Auto-enrolment and a single tier state pension are the central tenets of what Nigel Stanley and I call the third consensus in post-war pensions policy in the UK. You can read the argument in full in our Touchstone Extra pamphlet, Third Time Lucky. The third consensus has been spluttering into existence ever since the Pensions Commission, chaired by Adair Turner, wrote the obituary for the second consensus in 2005.

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  • Society & Welfare

    Winter deaths are too serious for political football

    29th April 2013 — Filed under: Society & Welfare

    Craig Berry Craig Berry

    There is apparently no benefit that riles the right, nor those across the political spectrum campaigning for intergenerational justice, more than the Winter Fuel Payment (WFP) for pensioners. The benefit costs the Exchequer just over £2 billion per year (compared to around £76 billion on state pensions).

    Iain Duncan Smith argued at the weekend that wealthy pensioners who do not need their WFP should voluntarily give it back. He has described the policy previously as a ‘bribe’.

    As such, the Work and Pensions Secretary continues to use WFP for political points-scoring.

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  • Equality

    Inheritance and pensions wealth

    26th April 2013 — Filed under: Equality, Pensions & Investment

    Craig Berry Craig Berry

    The chart below summarises a particularly interesting statistic released by ONS last week – it was tucked away on page 25 of Pension Trends: Chapter 10 so it’s possible some readers may have missed it!

    inheritance pensions

    The chart, which shows the mean pensions saving for 50-64 year olds with at least some savings, emphasises the importance of inherited wealth in the accumulation of pensions wealth. Obviously it is impossible to infer causation, and I suspect that it is largely the correlation of wealthy people being far more likely to inherit things that make them even more wealthy, and wealthy people being far more likely to have access to a good occupational pension.

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  • Pensions & Investment

    Pensions regulation doesn’t stand up to scrutiny

    25th April 2013 — Filed under: Pensions & Investment

    Craig Berry Craig Berry

    The Work and Pensions select committee has today added its voice to the head of steam building up against ‘defined contribution’ (DC) workplace pensions – the type of pension that most people will be automatically enrolled into under new obligations on employers.

    Debate is now beginning to focus on the issue of how DC pensions are regulated, or more precisely, who regulates them. There is currently a discrepancy between the Pensions Regulator’s (TPR) oversight of the auto-enrolment process and workplace pension scheme design, and the Financial Services Authority’s (FSA) oversight of the insurance companies that provide DC pensions.

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  • Pensions & Investment

    Budget changes to pension regulation: if a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well

    20th March 2013 — Filed under: Pensions & Investment

    Craig Berry Craig Berry

    Budget 2013 confirmed the coalition government’s decision to revise the Pensions Regulator’s (TPR’s) statutory objectives. According to the Chancellor’s speech, TPR will have

    A new requirement to have a regard for the growth prospects of employers.

    This is something that was broadly supported by the TUC. But the move would be far more effective if TPR’s objectives were more comprehensively reformed.

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  • Economics

    Public services squeeze will pay for budget initiatives

    20th March 2013 — Filed under: Economics, Public services

    Craig Berry Craig Berry

    The increase in National Insurance revenue made possible by the abolition of the rebates associated with ‘contracting out’ from the second state pension, which the Chancellor has decided to bring forward by a year to 2016, provides the funds for many of Budget 2013’s most eye-catching announcements. The government will say this is simply moving money around the public sector, but in practice it will produce a further squeeze on public services.

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