In something of a shock move, Gregg McClymont, the former Labour shadow pensions minister, starts a new role at IFM Investors in July as its executive director of public affairs for Europe.
Mr McClymont, a visiting fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford, and with several learned pension tomes to his name, is policy and external affairs director at not-for-profit B&CE, providers of The People’s Pension – where he moved just two years ago after a three-year stint at Aberdeen Standard Investments.
So why make another change now? Mr McClymont explains: “It’s a big wrench to leave TPP, both my friends in Crawley and the purpose that its profit-to-member structure enables. I’ll miss it, and I have no doubt it will become a giant.”
As a public affairs professional, he cannot resist laying on public relations with a trowel, or even a fork-lift truck: “I am going to work for another organisation owned by profit-to-member pension funds – IFM Investors.
“It’s an amazing story. Built by 27 Australian industry funds from scratch to manage their members’ money, IFM has grown into one of the largest owners of infrastructure worldwide, including Manchester and Stansted airports, the M6 toll and Anglian Water.”
The most pressing problems in pensions are the siren song of early access, individualisation and choice. For most people, most of the time, set and forget in a member-first governed fund with scale is more efficient than DIY
Gregg McClymont, The People's Pension
He adds: “The benefits of infrastructure investing for institutional investors are well known, and 50m people globally are now IFM investors via their pension funds. Scale, expertise and unique ownership make the difference.”
Where did it all begin?
Mr McClymont started his career as a tutorial fellow in history at St Hugh’s College, Oxford, before entering parliament in 2010 as Labour MP for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East. Just a year later he became the shadow minister for state for pensions, and was a commissioner on the prime minister’s commission on further devolution to Scotland before losing his seat at the 2015 general election. 
Loath to list his achievements, when pressed he came up with winning the MPs’ Golden Boot award. Almost as an afterthought, he modestly mentions his scholarship: “Slowly and surely, and with help from countless others”, he says he has “built up a working knowledge of pension systems globally”.
He is a collectivist, and he says the most pressing problems in pensions are the “siren song of early access, individualisation and choice”.
“For most people, most of the time, set and forget in a member-first governed fund with scale is more efficient than DIY.”
Mr McClymont would like to see every pension scheme run under a trust, and is not a fan of the contract/independent governance committee model.
He says the concept of pensions tax relief is outmoded as it “doesn’t succeed as an incentive”.
“The £35bn of tax relief should be better targeted at lower and middle earners with a flat rate system,” he says, but is careful not to be too doctrinaire on the exact level: “30 per cent is reasonable”.
On auto-enrolment, he favours higher employer contributions and the expansion of eligibility to more of the low paid, “who are disproportionately young, women, and from ethnic minorities”.
A bit of doomsayer, he warns that “high costs and charges transfer wealth over time from individuals to shareholders of retirement product providers”. But he sees the largest master trusts as “the best hope of avoiding this outcome”, while eventually forecasting more rationalisation.
“Pensions is not a cottage industry, so it will be a good thing,” he adds.
