Steve Webb

@joxley.jmoxley.co.uk is always good, but this - on post-literate political communication - is really, really good. www.joxleywrites.jmoxley.co.uk/p/playing-po...

Agreed - personally I think the chance of a big cut in the cap on lifetime lump sums without transitional protections is close to zero!

TBF, I don’t think they are doing any kite flying. I think the media do it all for them. And unless they start ruling things out (in which case the challenge is ‘you didn’t rule out Y so you must be going to do Y) then there’s not much they can do, short of a 5 year promise to leave things alone

Thanks for sharing, that’s a really thought-provoking article. It’s given me the idea for a bit of research!

Apparently HMRC have taken down *thousands* of dodgy websites linked to these scam texts about WFPs!

Lib Dem Tim Farron MP: "I'm a proud patriot, but I am no nationalist...You can tell the difference.

"Patriots love their country. Nationalists hate their neighbours. I am a patriot."

He says he's ashamed racists have tried to steal the flag.

Farron hits out at the "poison of nationalism".

Very much agree with this - defections in themselves don’t change a lot, but they are a strong signal of the relative health of the ‘ceding’ party and the ‘receiving party’!

My view would be that you can’t look at cost in isolation - after all if the headline cost of the pension is going up because wages are growing in real terms, then so is the tax base to pay for it? Personally I’d move to an earnings link once we’ve reached a target level - eg 1/3 of average wage

Reminds me of this gag-

Average earnings up 4.7% in latest ONS figures - this is likely to drive the 'triple lock' increase next April. New state pension will be less than £1 per week under the income tax threshold in 2026, and will exceed it in 2027.

Tweaking NI thresholds to make employing part time workers vastly more expensive is one of the craziest things a party of labour could possibly do. Single mums, full time students, all the workers who efficiently fill gaps, punished.

Few things make me feel as nuts these days as having conversations with friends in aid about how global humanitarian aid has effectively been destroyed - which is going to kill millions, and is already killing them - then shifting back to normal discourse, where basically no one talks about it.

Has AI worked out my inheritance tax correctly? STEVE WEBB replies According to AI, the pension will not be 'part of the estate' because it is in trust. So it can't be used to pay off the debts of the estate.

My column this week for This is Money responds to a reader who used ChatGPT to answer a question about pensions and IHT. The answer is 'kind of' correct, but the reader had drawn the wrong conclusion! www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/pensio...

Ministerial appointments: September 2025 The King has been pleased to approve the following appointments.

Looks like an additional round of ministerial announcements - mostly ministers of state - has just landed: www.gov.uk/government/n...

Hope you had your mobile phone with you @torstenbell.bsky.social …!

Great that Radio 4 Moneybox and BBC Breakfast are continuing to raise awareness of unclaimed Home Responsibilities Protection!

If you do find your name, go here to file to get your money!

www.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com

Pensions Minister Torsten Bell has always been one to watch for swift promotion ….

Timeline cleanse

Retirement in an ageing society This week, Stuart McDonald chats with Steve Webb, former UK Pensions Minister and Partner at LCP, about how demographic change is reshaping pensions and retirement.

Can the UK pension system adapt to an ageing population?

In Episode 6, I talk with former Pensions Minister @stevewebb1.bsky.social about:

🕰️ Future of the State Pension & Triple Lock
👥 Retirement for today's workers
🏠 Housing costs for future pensioners
💔 Widowhood

🎧 www.lcp.com/en/podcasts/...

I used to get the same with my Amazon recommendations!

Who’s talking PENSIONS?!

Please share the starter pack and encourage more debate here!

@stevewebb1.bsky.social @sarabenwell.bsky.social @stephawthorne.bsky.social @henrytapper.bsky.social
@marymcd.bsky.social @daviesofbrixton.bsky.social @josephinecumbo.bsky.social @prospectpension.bsky.social

Hi @sarabenwell.bsky.social good to see you here. I’ll ask if @higheredactuary.bsky.social can share with you the pensions starter pack!

Farage party picked a dead woman to run for Croydon Mayor EXCLUSIVE: Sharon Carby, aged 70, from Bradford, sadly died in July 2024. But that didn’t stop Reform UK six months later picking her as their Croydon mayoral candidate. By our Political Edit…

Reform will have to reselect in Croydon, as their initial candidate for Mayor had been dead for 6 months when they selected her, Inside Croydon report

Being dead is one way to pass the social media vetting but was likely to get noticed eventually

insidecroydon.com/2025/08/27/f...

Imagine having to explain a headline that says “Taliban ‘ready and willing’ to work with Nigel Farage” to a time-traveller from, say, 2011.

I delayed taking my state pension so why have I had a tax demand? My request to end the deferral seems to have prompted the DWP system to write to the tax office, giving them wrong information about when I started taking my pension.

One of the nice things about writing a weekly column answering reader questions is that you often learn something new. This week, a reader who deferred her state pension, backdated her claim 12 months to get a lump sum, and got an unexpected HMRC demand for tax for last year...

As long as you wait until I’ve seen the Arsenal highlights on Match of the Day before posting ‘spoliers’ about the match…

Really enjoyed Halt and Catch Fire - thank you!

Also, when she’s making a statement, the Leader of the Opposition asks her to ‘give way’ which doesn’t happen with statements!

Seeing this on the news last night and just thinking: really, well done, you've bought the hammer down hardest on the thing the country most needs, just congratulations to everyone involved.