Good morning, and welcome to One Whitehall Place and the launch of the Age of Responsibility.
We all know that pension provision is a global problem that threatens the stability of governments.
Why? People are living longer and pension funds after a decade of poor investment performance don’t have enough money to meet their liabilities. Which means in the UK alone there are over 1 million pensioners living in poverty and in the future this will be much worse as over 1/3 of workers aged 40 – 60 do not have an adequate pension. This is further compounded by the fact that the average person on the street has never had any financial education and is left feeling clueless about what to do and how.
The genesis of this report is a conversation with Lord Hutton to provide a clear roadmap to take us from where we are now to where we need to be for everyone in the UK to have a comfortable income in retirement.
The Age of Responsibility. Reflects one of the key themes that emerges from the report, which is that the responsibility of providing a comfortable income in retirement is now placed squarely on the shoulders of individual savers. The context for the next hour is for our collaborators & industry experts to share some of the ideas and key findings which we believe will help solve the pensions crisis, improve people’s quality of life in retirement and reduce the financial burden on the next generation. Thank you to all the contributors who have had the courage to share their expertise, ideas and time in making this report. We all have an opportunity to be good ancestors by planting trees we’ll never see.