Asked by: Baroness Altmann (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government how much the threshold for (1) income support, (2) income-based Jobseeker's Allowance, (3) income-related Employment and Support Allowance, (4) housing benefit, (5) child tax credits, and (6) pension credits, has increased (a) in line with inflation, and (b) in monetary terms, each year since 1997.
Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott
For the benefits listed there are many different rates. The tables in the spreadsheet attached show a selection of illustrative examples for each benefit in both cash and real terms.
Child Tax Credits are administered by HMRC and are not a DWP responsibility. Rates are therefore not provided here.
Asked by: Baroness Altmann (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many people had appointments with the PensionWise helpline in each calendar quarter in (1) 2018, (2) 2019, (3) 2020, (4) 2021, and (5) 2022.
Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott
The information requested is available on the MoneyHelper pension take up data dashboard, where it is published quarterly by financial year. It is provided quarterly by calendar year below:
Calendar Year | QUARTER | Telephone Appts Attended | Face to Face Appts Attended | TOTAL |
2018 | Q2* | 6,087 | 15,717 | 21,804 |
2018 | Q3 | 7,035 | 17,085 | 24,120 |
2018 | Q4 | 7,955 | 17,791 | 25,746 |
2019 | Q1 | 9,432 | 20,641 | 30,073 |
2019 | Q2 | 11,344 | 21,038 | 32,382 |
2019 | Q3 | 13,051 | 21,363 | 34,414 |
2019 | Q4 | 12,385 | 17,437 | 29,822 |
2020 | Q1 | 13,477 | 21,581 | 35,058 |
2020 | Q2 | 23,821 | 0 | 23,821 |
2020 | Q3 | 27,363 | 0 | 27,363 |
2020 | Q4 | 27,058 | 1 | 27,059 |
2021 | Q1 | 34,783 | 1 | 34,784 |
2021 | Q2 | 32,727 | 0 | 32,727 |
2021 | Q3 | 29,061 | 0 | 29,061 |
2021 | Q4 | 21,270 | 0 | 21,270 |
2022 | Q1 | 31,620 | 0 | 31,620 |
*Q1 data from 2018 is not available
Asked by: Baroness Altmann (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what data is (1) collected, and (2) published, relating to trust-based pension (a) Defined Contribution schemes, or (b) MasterTrust schemes, in any year since 2015, to show how many people have accessed their pension funds; and whether they purchased an (i) annuity, (ii) income drawdown, (iii) uncrystallised pension fund lump sum, or (iv) withdrew funds in full.
Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott
Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) publish data on their website, based on what is reported to them, on the number of flexible payments made from pensions, the number of individuals who have received these flexible payments and the total value of all flexible payments. As this includes all flexible pension payments, the data represents a proportion of payments made from trust-based Defined Contribution (DC) schemes as well as contract-based schemes. As of December 2021, 1.9 million individuals have taken 16.0 million flexible payments from their DC pensions since the introduction of Pension Freedoms in 2015.
The Pensions Regulator (TPR) publishes data on their website from trust-based DC schemes on an annual basis. This publication provides a high-level snapshot of the current landscape of occupational DC trust-based pension provision in the UK, including information on the number, memberships, and assets of schemes. The most recent publication is TPR’s 12th edition, DC Trust: scheme return data 2021 to 2022, which includes data captured since 2015.
Included in this, they report the number of members for whom each scheme is directly providing (self-annuitisation) or facilitating (lifetime annuities) annuity payments. At the end of 2021, there were 1,000 memberships receiving lifetime annuities, excluding hybrid schemes (which have a mixture of guarantees and investments), and less than 1000 memberships receiving self-annuitisations, also excluding hybrid schemes. Number of memberships, or number of pension pots, does not equate to number of individuals, as many people are members of more than one pension scheme.
The data in this publication from TPR does not capture all pensioner members, as some members will have retired but transferred out of their scheme.
Members who transfer out of a trust-based DC scheme and access their pension savings via a contract-based provider will be included in the data collected by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and published in their Retirement Income Market Data. However, data is not currently collected on volumes of members that transfer out of trust-based DC schemes with the intention of accessing their savings. The FCA data shows that from October 2015- March 2021, over 3.3 million DC pots have been accessed in the contract-based market. This data is presented in Table 1 and can be found on the FCA webpage: Retirement income market data 2020/21. This data is also provided broken down by year in Annex A.
Table 1: Volumes and proportion of retirement income products, October 2015- March 2021 (FCA Retirement Income Data) | ||
Product | Total volume | Proportion of all pots accessed |
Annuities purchased in period | 390,697 | 12% |
New drawdown policies entered and not fully withdrawn in period | 993,033 | 30% |
Pots where first partial UFPLS payment taken and not fully withdrawn in period | 130,247 | 4% |
Full cash withdrawals from pots being accessed for first time in period | 1,831,982 | 55% |
Total pots accessed for the first time | 3,345,960 | 100% |
*Volumes prior to April 2018 were drawn from a representative sample of firms. The FCA started collecting data from all regulated firms providing retirement income products from 1 April 2018.
Asked by: Baroness Altmann (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many people (1) have booked, or (2) had appointments, in each calendar quarter of (a) 2021, and (b) 2022, with (i) the MoneyHelper Pension helpline, (ii) the PensionWise/MoneyHelper Pensions on divorce helpline, (iii) the PensionWise/MoneyHelper Pension safeguarding helpline, and (iv) the PensionWise/MoneyHelper mid-life pension helpline.
Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott
The information requested is available on the MoneyHelper pension take up data dashboard, where it is published quarterly by financial year. It is provided quarterly by calendar year below:
2021 | MoneyHelper Pensions Helpline* | MoneyHelper Pensions Virtual appointments** | Pension Wise appointments attended | Pension Wise appointments arranged |
Q1 | 71,522 | 125 | 34,784 | 45,376 |
Q2 | 56,089 | 93 | 32,727 | 45,221 |
Q3 | 39,166 | 113 | 29,061 | 38,344 |
Q4 | 36,465 | 107 | 21,270 | 27,620 |
2021 Total | 203,242 | 438 | 117,842 | 156,561 |
*The Pensions Helpline is a general pensions guidance service that anyone can contact with any pensions query – this service does not require appointments booked and is delivered across multiple channels. As such, this data includes the following:
**MoneyHelper Pensions virtual appointments cover Divorce appointments, Mid-Life Pensions Review appointments for the self-employed, and Pension Loss appointments. Data on Pensions Safeguarding appointments has not yet been published.
2022 | MoneyHelper Pension helpline* | MoneyHelper Pensions Virtual appointments** | Pension Wise appointments attended | Pension Wise appointments arranged |
Q1 | 52,779 | 93 | 31,620 | 41,624 |
*The Pensions Helpline is a general pensions guidance service that anyone can contact with any pensions query – this service does not require appointments booked and is delivered across multiple channels. As such, this data includes the following:
**MoneyHelper Pensions virtual appointments cover Divorce appointments, Mid-Life Pensions Review appointments for the self-employed, and Pension Loss appointments. Data on Pensions Safeguarding appointments has not yet been published.
Asked by: Baroness Altmann (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what were the customer satisfaction ratings for the PensionWise service for each year since the service began; and what are the figures for the past four quarters.
Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott
The below data on customer satisfaction is collected post-appointment.
Year | Customer Satisfaction |
2016/17 | 94% |
2017/18 | 92% |
2018/19 | 93% |
2019/20 | 94% |
Prior to the formation of the Money and Pensions Service (MaPS) in 2019, satisfaction data was taken from the Pension Wise annual service evaluation and was not published quarterly. During this time The Money Advice Service, The Pensions Advisory Service, and Pension Wise had in place their own Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), along with different approaches to measuring performance. MaPS wanted to have a single programme measuring performance of their three service areas in a more consistent and joined up way. During 2020/21, there was no Pension Wise evaluation because MaPS were setting in place a new evaluation programme to achieve this.
Satisfaction data from 2021/22 is published quarterly by financial year on the MoneyHelper pensions take up dashboard. Pension Wise satisfaction scores for telephone appointments are provided quarterly by calendar year below – Q4 data is not yet available.
Quarter | Customer Satisfaction | |
2021/22 Q1 | 93.2% | |
2021/22 Q2 | 93.9% | |
2021/22 Q3 | 93.5% |
Asked by: Baroness Altmann (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what new measures they have put in place, or plan to introduce, to ensure elderly pensioners who are facing sharply rising fuel bills are able to afford to keep their homes sufficiently warm this winter.
Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott
The Social Security (Up-rating of Benefits) Act 2021 introduced a double lock and allowed the Government to increase pensions by the higher of inflation or 2.5 per cent. From April 2022 state pensions will be increased by 3.1 per cent and this represents an additional £4bn spend on pensioner benefits in 2022/23. It should also be remembered that last year when earnings were negative this would have resulted in pensions being frozen, despite CPI being 0.5 per cent pensioners in receipt of state pension saw an increase of 2.5 per cent.
Pension Credit also provides invaluable financial support for vulnerable pensioners. Around 1.4 million eligible pensioners across Great Britain receive some £5bn in Pension Credit, which tops up their retirement income and is a passport to other financial help such as support with housing costs, council tax, heating bills and a free TV licence for those over 75.
Local Authorities in England have discretion to design their own bespoke local schemes within the overall parameters of the Household Support Fund, with support primarily focused on food, energy & water bills and wider essentials. Up to 50 per cent of the Fund is available for councils to spend on households without children, including those of State Pension age.
Other support for pensioners includes Winter Fuel Payments which continue to be payable to customers of State Pension age. We pay £200 to households with a customer aged between 66 and 79 and £300 to a household with someone aged 80 or over. We pay over 11 million winter fuel payments annually at a cost of £2bn which is a significant contribution to winter fuel bills.
Cold Weather Payments are also available and help vulnerable people in receipt of certain income-related benefits to meet additional heating costs, during periods of unseasonably cold weather between 1 November and 31 March. This includes older people in receipt of Pension Credit.
The Warm Home Discount Scheme provides those in receipt of Pension Credit Guarantee Credit a discount of £140 on their energy bill providing their supplier is part of the scheme. There are now 200 thousand fewer pensioners in absolute poverty (both before and after housing costs) than in 2009/10.
There are now 200 thousand fewer pensioners in absolute poverty (both before and after housing costs) than in 2009/10.
Asked by: Baroness Altmann (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they have taken to address the issue of new state pension claimants waiting weeks or months for their pension payments to start; and whether everyone reaching state pension age is now being paid their state pension on time.
Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott
We have deployed significant additional resource into the processing of new State Pension claims, the payment of which was particularly affected by the impact of the pandemic.
As a result, all claims received by DWP for UK State Pension should be paid on time, other than for those customers where further information is required, or evidence is awaited. State Pension is paid in arrears and, in most instances, the first payment will be due four weeks after the customer’s 66th Birthday.
Asked by: Baroness Altmann (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many women who were receiving less state pension than they were entitled to have (1) had their payments corrected, and (2) received back payments.
Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott
I refer you to the information published on gov.uk on 22 October 2021. Please see attached document.
Asked by: Baroness Altmann (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government for each of the past ten years, how many (1) women, and (2) men, have had their state pension reduced owing to the death of a partner.
Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott
The information requested is not normally held as part of normal business and cannot be provided as this would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Baroness Altmann (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have identified why automatic pension uplifts were not applied since 2008 to women's State Pension when their husbands reached State Pension Age; and what steps they have taken to ensure that future pension payments are subject to checks.
Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott
As set out in the written statement of 4th March 2021, laid in both Houses, the Department IT systems produce an electronic prompt to consider if an individual’s State Pension amount should be increased. The prompt requires Department Staff to take further manual action and, in some cases, this did not take place.
The Department is undertaking additional quality assurance checks to ensure that State Pension payments are accurate.