UK Parliament / Open data

Pensions Bill

Proceeding contribution from Steve Webb (Liberal Democrat) in the House of Commons on Tuesday, 29 October 2013. It occurred during Debate on bills on Pensions Bill.

I would be happy to provide the hon. Lady with the clarification she seeks, either while I am still at the Dispatch Box or subsequently, if that would be helpful.

Part 4 of the Bill, which occupied the majority of our time in the House, deals with automatic enrolment and one the many issues not addressed until this coalition Government came to power—the issue of small stranded pension pots. We anticipate that there could be tens of millions of small stranded pension pots, which is not something any of us want. I think that the prospect of the pot-follows-member system, under which people change jobs and the small pension pots go with them and build into what I have called a big, fat pot, is a better model. It will engage people with pension saving and result in people knowing where their pensions are and getting better value for annuities. That will be of great value.

It would be fair to say that a Bill such as this does not just happen, but depends on the work of an army of officials with expertise in both state and private pensions, on parliamentary counsel and on the many stakeholders who have given us advice and encouragement and enabled us to refine the Bill. I put on the record my appreciation to all of them.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
569 c868 
Session
2013-14
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
Legislation
Pensions Bill 2013-14
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