Tom Selby is AJ Bell's Director of Public Policy. He joined the company in 2016 as a Senior Analyst before becoming Head of Retirement Policy. He has a degree in Economics from Newcastle University.
Following his degree, Tom worked for seven years as a journalist specialising in pensions and retirement. He spent almost six years at a leading adviser trade magazine, Money Marketing, initially as a pensions reporter before becoming Head of News in 2014. He has won multiple awards for his role as a financial journalist, and was more recently nominated for Expert of the Year at the 2023 Headlinemoney Awards.
Tom is heavily involved with the PR and external communications teams at AJ Bell. His current role involves direct engagement with senior policy makers in Government and regulators. He also sits on the industry working group for the joint review of advice and guidance boundaries being conducted by the FCA and the Treasury. In the past, Tom has successfully campaigned for a number of consumer-focused reforms, including banning pension cold-calling and increasing pension allowances, and he is passionate about improving outcomes for savers and retirees.
Tom is regularly quoted in national print and broadcast media, including appearances on a weekly BBC Radio London personal finance slot. He has also appeared multiple times on BBC’s MoneyBox as an expert, as well as BBC Radio, BBC News, Sky News and LBC.
24 November 2020
Five top tips for people accessing their pension during Covid-19New data published by the Association of British Insurers (ABI) reveals details of how savers have been accessing their retirement pots during lockdown*. The number of people accessing their pension flexibly increased 56% between April and September, while the number taking their entire pension as a lump sum rose 94%. This increase likely reflects...
17 November 2020
How to protect your cash if the Chancellor swoops on capital gains taxWith Pfizer potentially weeks away from distributing a coronavirus vaccine, it seems increasingly likely that next year the Government will shift from pandemic emergency response mode to asking: ‘How on earth do we pay for all this?’
In this context, yesterday’s OTS report – commissioned by Rishi Sunak - feels very much like the Chancellor rolling...
22 October 2020
New warning over pensions crisis facing 3.5 million self-employedAutomatic enrolment has started the process of getting employed workers saving something for retirement. However, the reforms do not cover almost 5 million self-employed workers, the majority of whom are not saving in a pension at all and risk facing severe financial difficulties in later life, new research suggests.*
Self-employed retirement...
29 September 2020
Two in five UK adults have been targeted by a scam or fraud during lockdownThe financial uncertainty created by the Covid-19 crisis is like blood in the water for scammers, with a huge proportion of the UK population believing that they have been targeted during lockdown.
Over a fifth of people have already been made financially worse off during Covid-19 and as the Government prepares to end the furlough scheme, millions...
24 September 2020
Rishi Sunak unveils new COVID-19 support package as 2020 Budget is shelvedWhile the Chancellor had previously made clear the furlough scheme could not continue on the never-never, removing all support just as the UK enters a new – albeit less severe - national lockdown would have risked crippling sectors of the economy which rely on people going out and travelling to work.
The new Jobs Support Scheme moves away from the...
23 September 2020
Six months of lockdown - women more likely to be financially worse off than menIt is staggering that we have been living in the surreal world of full or partial lockdown for half a year now. Shutting down large parts of the economy was always going to take its toll on people’s finances, but it is still worrying to see over a fifth of the country is worse off as a direct result of the pandemic.
Although there is not a vast...
20 July 2020
How to avoid a 90% annual allowance cut if you need to access your pensionEven before Covid-19 hit, the money purchase annual allowance (MPAA) felt like an unfair punishment for savers whose only crime was accessing taxable income from their pension pot.
During this crisis many more over 55s will be facing salary cuts or joblessness, while others will need to use their savings to help loved ones struggling to make ends...
6 July 2020
Will Rishi Sunak deliver a ‘good news’ mini-Budget on Wednesday?As the UK begins to emerge slowly (and in a few cases boozily) from lockdown, focus now turns to plugging the eye-popping £300 billion hole left in the UK’s finances by COVID-19.
The Chancellor will have to weigh-up his desire to kick-start the economy after its three-month slumber with the need to raise extra revenue via the tax system. A strong...
4 June 2020
UK workers prepared to pay extra 4% income tax to fund £300bn pandemic billBattling back from Covid-19 is going to be a long hard journey. As the UK Government eases lockdown restrictions and state support for the economy is slowly scaled back, debate will inevitably pivot towards how the near £300billion black hole in public finances should be filled.
While the Coalition Government opted for public spending cuts to...
21 May 2020
Cut to the Lifetime ISA withdrawal charge – everything you need to knowAs part of its emergency response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Government has reduced the Lifetime ISA (LISA) early withdrawal charge from 25% to 20%.
So how might that affect you? To answer, I’ll first run through how LISAs work, then look at what the new rules mean in practice.
How LISAs workIf you are a UK resident aged 18-39, you can open a...
