Comment: Politicians should bow out of pensions By JEFF SALWAY Published on Sunday 20 May 2012 00:00 FORCING babies to find paid employment - or presumably forgo their right to be sick all over anyone close enough - seemed beyond the pale even for this government. Fortunately the headlines screaming that "babies have to work until 77" were misleading - what they meant to imply was that kids born this year won't receive their state pension until the age of 77, not that they'd have to stack the lowest shelves at their nearest supermarket. The stories were based on PwC "research" that merely pointed out that the recent Queen's Speech ratified plans to raise the state pension age in line with longevity. Predictably this met with "outrage" and "shock," but it's hard to see why. If anything, kids born today are more likely to be working into their 80s before claiming their state pension - if there is to be such a thing by then. In another recent report, the Pensions Policy Institute warned that nearly half of people already over 50 will have to work until their mid-70s to avoid financial hardship in retirement. The challenge posed by greater longevity is one that policymakers have only just begun to get their collective head around. The increases in the state pension age will continue to accelerate and for people under the age of 30 now, that means working lives of more than 50 years - for those lucky enough to keep in secure employment. One of the biggest obstacles to tackling this daunting challenge is the politicisation of pensions. For as long as policy is made and remade by successive governments there's no hope of a coherent approach to longevity and its financial implications. Neither government, industry, nor individuals can truly plan ahead when they know the next administration will move the goalposts yet again. Progress means successfully convincing people of the need to save and creating an environment in which they can do so confidently. That involves genuine financial education in schools; workplace savings schemes which address the fact that debts are the biggest obstacle to saving; employment laws and structures that reflect changing employee needs; and removing disincentives to saving, just for starters. Leaving pensions in the hands of politicians hasn't got us far in recent years. To have a chance of making the system fit for purpose for the next few decades the responsibility must be handed to an independent pensions commission. The commission chaired by Lord Adair Turner in the mid-Noughties produced the groundwork on which current pensions policy is based - most notably automatic enrolment, which starts in October - and has stood the test of time. Sadly there's little appetite among today's politicians to relinquish control of pensions. Last year, the pensions minister, Steve Webb, dismissed such a suggestion by arguing that "you are never going to depoliticise these things because ultimately they are value judgements and that is the very stuff of politics." That's a feeble case at best from a minister who has, in fact, been a rare coalition government success. It's exactly two years today that it produced its initial agreement and pensions is one of the very few areas in which progress has been made. The biggest contribution this government can make to the future of the UK pensions system is to hand over to an independent commission once the current reforms are under way. Sadly, however, it'll be putting babies to work and making them earn their formula before even considering such a bold step.