The government has launched a new Pensions Commission to address the growing risk that millions of workers will face an inadequate income in retirement.
Tasked with leading the Pensions Adequacy Review, the Commission will examine barriers to saving, review pension provision across sectors, and make long-term policy recommendations to secure fair and sustainable retirements.
The three commissioners bring a mix of policy, governance and commercial experience to the role.
Baroness Jeannie Drake
A veteran of the original Turner Commission, Baroness Drake has been at the heart of UK pensions reform for over two decades. She served as deputy chair of Nest, was a board member of the Pension Protection Fund, and was previously a pension scheme trustee at Alliance & Leicester. She continues to serve as a trustee of The People’s Pension master trust and the Telefónica UK defined benefit pension scheme.
Baroness Drake was appointed to the House of Lords in 2010, since when she has raised issues around gender and carer gaps in pension saving, as well as taking a keen interest in pensions policy.
She also has strong links with unions. Earlier in her career, the baroness was deputy general secretary of the Communication Workers Union, and she has also served as president of the Trades Union Congress. She is also a former commissioner at the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
Sir Ian Cheshire
Sir Ian is a business leader with wide-ranging boardroom and policy experience.
He was formerly group chief executive of retail giant Kingfisher and chief executive of B&Q.
Other previous public appointments include chairing Channel 4, Barclays UK, the British Retail Consortium and the Prince of Wales’s Corporate Leaders Group on climate change.
Sir Ian currently chairs property investment group Landsec, Spire Healthcare, the King Charles III Charitable Fund and the Institute for Government.
A former lead non-executive director for the Cabinet Office and the Department for Work and Pensions, he was knighted in 2014 for services to business, sustainability and the environment.
Professor Nick Pearce
Pearce is a leading public policy thinker. He is professor of public policy at the University of Bath and director of the Institute for Policy Research.
A former head of the policy unit at No 10 Downing Street under Gordon Brown, he has also served as director of the Institute for Public Policy Research and as a special adviser in the Home Office and the Department for Education and Employment.
His academic work focuses on welfare reform, political economy, British institutions and inequality.
Pearce co-authored Shadows of Empire in 2018 with fellow academic Michael Kenny, exploring the role of the “Anglosphere” in UK politics. He chairs the Living Wage Commission and is a trustee of the Higher Education Policy Institute.
