New party forms to contest pension policies at next election

A new political party has formed to raise awareness at the next general election of how pension policies are failing - and advocates raising the retirement age to 75 years old.

The U Party, formed by former National Association of Pension Funds chairman Robin Ellison intends to have a team of pension experts working to make pensions a policy issue for the major parties in next year’s election.

The party’s manifesto for pensions is a brief single paragraph on a web site and states pensions are unaffordable over the middle term, and over the next fifty years the retirement/pension age will have to rise to 75 so that everyone can have around 15 years in retirement, rather than 30/40 years.

The state pension system is so complicated that few understand it or can plan around it - and the private pension system is in process of being legislated out of existence. The U Party is campaigning for a simplification and improvement of the system, says the manifesto.

‘”The goals are to raise awareness amongst the public of the incoherence of pension strategy of each of the three main parties and to suggest a solution for each of them to adopt,” said Ellison, who is currently listed as the party’s only candidate.

Ellison said that the party has three main policies:

• To overhaul the state pensions system into one coherent pension instead of a state pension and a second state pension.
• Deregulate the private pensions system so that regulations covers 50 pages rather than 50,000 pages.
• Change the tax structure for pensions.

Ellison, who is now head of strategic development for pensions at Pinsent Masons, said that he hoped to build support for the party among other key figures in the pensions industry.

He added that he hoped other parties would adopt the U Party’s policies by ‘osmosis’ and expected the party to fold after the election next year.