Aegon urges Govt to drop Labour's "piecemeal" approach to pension reforms
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Aegon UK chief executive Otto Thoresen (pictured) will today urge the Government to turn its back on Labour’s “piecemeal approach” to pension and saving reform.
Speaking at a fringe meeting at the Liberal Democrats party conference alongside pensions minister Steve Webb, Thoresen will call on the Government to do more to create a sustainable savings culture in the UK.
He will urge the Government to re-examine the way financial incentives for saving and investment fit together and consider the behavioural aspects of how people approach financial decision making.
Thoresen also wants the Government to look urgently at the need to develop different advice models. Aegon believes that the financial landscape is getting more complicated and the RDR threatens to limit access to advice to fewer people.
Aegon also wants the Government to conduct a review of what motivates people to start, and keep on, saving.
He says: “The UK faces huge challenges in dealing with the demands of an ageing population and creating the groundwork for a sustainable savings culture. The coalition Government and the wider population are showing increasing appetite to tackle these challenges but we must go about it in the right way.
“We have a unique opportunity to harness the momentum for change and make a real difference to people’s financial security. But we can only do this by ending our piecemeal approach to savings legislation. We must take a fresh look at what financial incentives and behavioural aspects encourage people to save and make sure good financial advice is there for everyone who needs it.”
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Readers' comments (3)
Kevin Archer | 20 Sep 2010 1:49 pm
If the Government does adopt this approach then presumably all the proposed training and authorisation exams that Financial advisers are expected to complete by 2012 will have to go "out of the window" as well.
Dont hold your breathe.
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Julian Stevens | 20 Sep 2010 1:52 pm
The major obstacle to any meaningful change of course on the part of the government is Mark Hoban and until he's out of the picture, nothing will improve. He believes the RDR will sort everything out.
The most important long term savings vehicle is a pension plan but unless the government radically and meaningfully simplifies the framework by which these are governed, the public's distrust of them will remain. A good place to start might be to discard the word pension (due to the association with annuities) and instead just call them a retirement income plan. But what do I know? I just see clients every week.
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paolo standerwick | 20 Sep 2010 4:06 pm
Well said Julian Stevens. I had words with Mark Hoban before the elections as my molcal conservative candidate put me in touch with him.
After speaking to him on the telephone I immediately realised we are all wasting our time. He smells like the old 'New Labour', thinks like the old 'New Labour' and talks just like the old 'New Labour'.
You know what they say about ducks. If is quacks it's proably duck. And he quacked the same old crap to me. He needs the sack.
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