Reform UK would look to overhaul public-sector pensions, the party’s deputy leader Richard Tice has said.

At an event in the City of London, Mr Tice told business chiefs the party also wants to lead a period of economic growth akin to the so-called Big Bang of the 1980s which happened under the Thatcher government.

Reform has been on a charm offensive with leaders from the world of business in recent weeks as the party aims to establish economic credibility after axing a series of promises to implement sweeping tax cuts made at the election.

Speaking at Bloomberg’s headquarters in central London, Mr Tice said: “We have to again ask really serious questions about the way we do pensions in this country.”

The liability for defined public sector benefit schemes is “growing at somewhere between £30 billion and £50 billion a year”, Mr Tice said.

“I don’t think it is unreasonable to sit down with the unions and to say ‘look, for new employees we can do this differently’.

“The private sector did this 25 years ago. But if we are not even prepared to have that discussion then we are just not going to make the progress that we need because that increasing liability … is completely unsustainable.”

Unions have reportedly warned that shifting towards defined contribution schemes, seen as less generous, could cost billions.

Mr Tice also set out his party’s aims at growing the economy and insisted regulatory reform was needed to see this through.

He said: “Here we are … 39 years on after the Big Bang. My contention to you is that now is actually the time for the big reform.

“We have to stand back and say, ‘How’s it going? What can we do better?’ and, in a sense, we’ve actually got a bit of time.

“We’re in early stages of an electoral cycle, so we can actually ask some really sort of big picture questions with a clean sheet of paper, almost like a sort of brainstorming session in the boardroom.”

The senior Reform MP also suggested politicians need to challenge the Bank of England more often, including the make-up of its monetary policy committee and whether it should be given a “mandate” for growth.

A company linked to Baroness Michelle Mone and her husband Doug Barrowman owes £39m in tax on top of the £148m it was ordered to pay the government for breaching a contract to supply PPE.

Documents filed by PPE Medpro’s administrator on Tuesday revealed the figure owed to His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC).

Last month a court ruled the company breached a contract to supply medical gowns during the Covid pandemic because they did not meet certification requirements for sterility.

HMRC and the administrators declined to comment.

PPE Medpro was put into administration last month, and Health Secretary Wes Streeting said the government would pursue the company “with everything we’ve got” to recover the cash.

PPE Medpro has £672,774 available to unsecured creditors, far less than the money owed to the DHSC, the administrators’ filings show.

They also reveal that the debt to the government is even bigger than previously known.

During the outbreak of the Covid pandemic in 2020, the government scrambled to secure supplies of PPE as the country went into lockdown and hospitals across the country were reporting shortages of clothing and accessories to protect medics from the virus.

In May that year, PPE Medpro was set up by a consortium led by Baroness Mone’s husband, Doug Barrowman, and won its first government contract to supply masks through a so-called VIP lane after being recommended by Baroness Mone.

The Department of Health and Social Care sued PPE Medpro and won damages over claims the company breached its contract to supply medical gowns.

Mr Barrowman told the BBC in an interview in 2023 that he was the ultimate beneficial owner of PPE Medpro. The shares are held in the name of an accountant, Arthur Lancaster, according to Companies House documents.

In that same interview he admitted receiving more than £60m in profits from PPE Medpro.

Baroness Mone, best known for founding the lingerie company Ultimo, admitted that millions of pounds from those profits were put into a trust from which she and her children stood to benefit.

An Isle of Man company linked to Mr Barrowman, Angelo (PTC), has a secured debt of £1m to the PPE Medpro, which means it is likely to rank ahead of government creditors when it comes to paying out whatever cash can be recovered from the company.

The administrators’ report says it expects there will be enough money to repay this in full.

Filings in the Isle of Man show the beneficial owner of Angelo (PTC) is Knox House Trust, part of Barrowman’s Knox group of companies.

Arthur Lancaster and a spokesperson for Doug Barrowman did not respond to requests for comment.