REFORM’S plans to overhaul local government pensions are a “significant threat” to gender pay equality, Unison’s national secretary for equalities Gloria Mills warned today.

The right-wing party’s proposals to remove access to public service pension schemes for new entrants from 2030 could reverse years of progress, she said.

Speaking at the launch of Prospect union’s eighth annual gender pension gap report, Ms Mills said: “These pensions are hardly gold-plated.”

Pointing out that more than half of NHS pensioners receive just £5,000 a year, she continued: “But combined with the state pension, they are crucial in securing decent retirement incomes for public service workers — the majority of whom are women.

“Any attack on public service pension schemes is primarily an attack on the retirement incomes of women.”

The report, set to be published next week, describes “significant progress in narrowing the gap, including improvements to the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) introduced in April 2026,” said Unison.

“These changes, particularly around maternity leave, were highlighted as a model for addressing disparities faced by carers.”

Ms Mills also raised concerns about the potential impact of policies opposing flexible and remote working, warning they could further limit women’s participation in the workforce and reduce their future pension entitlements.

“We are concerned about Reform UK’s hostility to flexible working and the ability to work from home,” she said.

“Such attitudes could further disadvantage women in regard to employment participation, and beyond that, to entitlement to a decent retirement income.”

Unlike state pensions, which are paid out of general taxation, local governments and their workers pay into schemes that guarantee a level of income in retirement, often linked to final or average salaries.

In February, Reform’s deputy leader Richard Tice announced it would end more generous defined benefit pension schemes for new local government workers.

He also vowed to merge nearly 100 separate schemes to create a £500 billion British Sovereign Wealth Fund, ditch the government’s environmental targets and scrap new employment rights, including protections around sick pay and unfair dismissal.

National Pensioners Convention general secretary Jan Shortt said: “To propose a scheme that will increase the gender pension gap is an ill-thought out piece of work that should be consigned to the bin.”