Reform-linked founder calls state pension 'essentially a Ponzi scheme'

CFABB’s 183-page report sets out £75bn tax package weeks before Burnham budget

CFABB will formally launch the report at a private event with City executives on Wednesday, weeks before Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s government is due to reveal its first budget. According to the document, the package would “remove up to 50% of the existing tax code” at a £75bn cost to the public finances and reshape Britain’s retirement system.

The report describes its package as “a programme of radical reform to Britain’s financial system and tax code, designed ultimately to raise productivity and living standards through better-paid jobs, higher retirement incomes, higher business investment, more businesses starting and scaling, and less time and money spent on unproductive activity.”

CFABB was founded and is led by Jonathan Brown, who previously served as Reform UK’s chief operations officer. At a Tuesday briefing with reporters, Brown said the state pension is “essentially a Ponzi scheme,” arguing that workers were unfairly funding current retirees. The thinktank’s proposed replacement — a lifetime investment account — would come with a £1,000 starter pack at birth, with account holders later contributing up to 15% of earnings into a personal retirement pot. The Guardian described the accounts as “Trump-style.” The state pension would remain only as a “means-tested safety net” for the worst-off, according to the report.

The tax side of the package targets levies typically associated with wealthier Britons. The report calls for abolishing capital gains tax and inheritance tax, both of which it says disrupt family businesses and encourage wealth to move out of the UK. It also proposes scrapping stamp duty on property and shares, the digital service tax, and air passenger duty, and what the report calls a “drastic reduction” in “internationally uncompetitive” corporation tax from 25% to 15% over eight years.

The Department for Work and Pensions forecasts the state pension will cost the public purse £146.1bn in 2025 to 2026. The report acknowledges that any tax changes would have to be matched by cuts to public spending — to avoid what it described as a “Liz Truss-style market meltdown” — but stopped short of specifying how those cuts would be matched across the £75bn package. It identified possible savings, including closing the public pension plan to new teachers and civil servants and eradicating the state pension entirely.

CFABB’s operations are based in Millbank Tower, near Reform’s headquarters, and the thinktank has notable ties with the party, even as authors said the work has not been reviewed by Reform UK. The organisation has five staff and previously counted James Orr — Reform UK’s former head of policy — as chair of its advisory board. A spokesperson for CFABB said Orr stepped down from the thinktank role when he took a job at Reform in February and was not replaced.

Orr was suspended from Reform UK earlier this month after being filmed in an undercover investigation appearing to help orchestrate a plot to get around electoral laws on foreign donations; he denies wrongdoing. The thinktank’s funding is unclear, the Guardian reported, and authors insisted that their work had yet to be reviewed by the party.

Beyond the pension and tax proposals, the report calls for a sliding scale for bank taxes, breaking up the Treasury by moving some responsibilities to a new “Department for Economic Growth,” and tying senior Bank of England officials’ pay to hitting inflation targets.

CFABB launched formally last year after raising fresh funds under its previous name, Resolute 1850 — a reference to the ship whose timbers were used in the White House’s Oval Office. The report has been released weeks before Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s government is due to reveal its first budget.