UK Parliament / Open data

Pensions Bill

Proceeding contribution from Lord Bates (Conservative) in the House of Lords on Wednesday, 15 January 2014. It occurred during Debate on bills and Committee proceeding on Pensions Bill.

The noble Lord makes my point: it is more difficult to understand. What are we trying to do? We are trying to make it simpler. We are trying to get people to be able to understand it. That is one of the reasons why it appeals to people. They will only ever have one pension pot; under the other scheme they may have several; they will be able to keep track of that and follow it through. Anyway, we can discuss and debate that, but in all of the consultation that was undertaken, it was clear that there was a strong view in favour—not only from the respondents of the consultation, but also in the opinion polls that followed from the industry.

The noble Lord, Lord Turner, raised the important issue that pot follows member fails to deal with high charges. We strongly agree that driving up scheme quality is of paramount importance. This is an issue wider than just a scheme used for transfers in the aggregator model, but actually should be something that applies to all, to set minimum standards across a broader range of schemes. Therefore, in doing so, it would benefit not just those affected by these pension pot transfers, but also the existing members of those schemes.

The noble Lord, Lord Turner, said he did not accept the pot size comparisons that were being put forward. He spoke about the £2,000 limit: why was it £2,000? We actually consulted not just on £10,000: we consulted on £20,000, £10,000, £5,000, all the way down to £2,000 and even £1,000, which is similar to the amount that is currently used in the Australian model, which is often cited in this context. In all of those different levels, pot follows member came out ahead of the aggregator in terms of individual responses.

About this proceeding contribution

Reference

751 cc170-1GC 

Session

2013-14

Chamber / Committee

House of Lords Grand Committee

Legislation

Pensions Bill 2013-14
Back to top