Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan to make changes to tax and National insurance reliefs for salary sacrifice pension arrangements; and if so, what estimate they have made of the cost to employers, in particular in regard to the cost of changing payroll processes and renegotiating employment contracts.

Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)

The Government keeps all taxes under review as part of the policy making process. The Chancellor will announce any changes to the tax system at fiscal events in the usual way.

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Livermore on 6 November (HL11291), what were the annual costs of the tax exemption of income receipts and capital gains in pension funds in the past three years.

Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)

Estimates of Income Tax relief on pension contributions can be found in Table 6 of the Private Pension Statistics publication. [1]

Figures are in £ million and rounded to the nearest £100 million.

The column totals may not equal the sum of the individual components due to rounding.

HMRC does not hold data on the cost of the tax exemption of capital gains in pension funds.

[1] This publication can be access via the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/personal-and-stakeholder-pensions-statistics

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many disabled people over 18 years old are not able to access their Child Trust Funds because their parents or guardian have not applied to the Court of Protection to access the funds on their behalf.

Answered by Baroness Levitt - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)

It is not possible to provide the information requested as this data is not held by the Ministry of Justice. This is because a lack of mental capacity cannot be inferred simply from a person’s disability or condition. Capacity is decision-specific and timebound.

Many disabled young adults are able to manage their own finances, including accessing their matured Child Trust Fund (CTF), with appropriate support where needed. An application to the Court of Protection to access a CTF is only required where the account holder lacks mental capacity to make decisions about their property and affairs and does not have an existing court order or court appointed deputy in place. A deputy may be appointed to manage a range of assets, including any CTF, or the court can make a one-off order for CTF access.

The Government recognises that the transition to adulthood can be a challenging time for young disabled people and their families. To support them, guidance has been published on GOV.UK in the form of a toolkit, “Making financial decisions for young people who lack capacity”, which raises awareness on the arrangements that they need to have in place.

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask His Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the proportion of (1) defined contribution, and (2) defined benefit, pension schemes that use salary sacrifice for auto-enrolled workers.

Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)

Whilst the government does not currently hold these figures, 39% of employers offer salary sacrifice and 35% of employees use it. We would expect that the vast majority of pension schemes using salary sacrifice include workers covered by pensions automatic enrolment. Automatic enrolment applies to workers aged between 22 and the State Pension age and earning at least £10,000 a year. The latest figures indicate that the majority (94%) of employees using salary sacrifice are eligible for auto-enrolment.