Pension Schemes Bill

Debate between Lord Newby and Lord Hutton of Furness

Monday 12th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hutton of Furness]

My Lords, presumably that information will be subject to freedom of information requests.

[Lord Newby]

That, my Lords, is an extremely interesting question to which I do not know the answer.

Pension Schemes Bill

Debate between Lord Newby and Lord Hutton of Furness

Tuesday 16th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, I think that the strong take-up of auto-enrolment suggests that people are actually a bit more long-sighted than they are sometimes given credit for. Young people in their 20s and early 30s who are thinking about their pension savings are looking at what kind of value for money they can get from doing that as opposed to putting their money into alternative forms of saving. So I am not sure that I altogether agree with the noble Baroness.

The noble Lord, Lord Hutton, said that the Government should strongly encourage partial annuitisation. We have always been clear that an annuity will remain the right choice for many at some point in their retirement because it can provide the security that they are looking for. He also asked about inheritance tax. I can say that the intention of the legislation is that the scheme administrator will retain some discretion over how death benefits are paid, ensuring that these benefits can remain outside the scope of inheritance tax.

[Lord Hutton of Furness]

I am enormously encouraged by the Minister’s response, but can he explain to me how they will do that?

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, I do not know, I am afraid, but I will write to the noble Lord as I am almost out of time. The House has rules that, as a Whip—although I know I am going to break them already—I can break only to a certain extent. I will write to the noble Lord in that respect. I might also write to him about the situation in Australia.

The noble Lord, Lord Freeman, asked whether the new flexibilities would put people at risk of poverty in the future. The basic principle here is that people must be trusted to make their own choices about how to use their savings to fund their retirement. We believe that the introduction of the new, simpler state pension in April 2016 will help minimise the impact on means-tested benefits as the full level of the new state pension will be above the level of the basic means test in personal credit, and we expect over 80% of those reaching state pension age in the mid-2030s to be receiving the full new state pension.

The noble Baroness, Lady Drake, took up the theme of the noble Lord, Lord Hutton, about the dangers of a revolution. She saw the dangers as being significantly more considerable, I think, than most noble Lords who spoke. Of course, some of the potential problems that she foresees are impossible to predict absolutely, but I did not recognise the gloomy landscape that she portrayed in a number of respects. She asked why we were still paying tax relief when people will spend all their money. Tax relief is designed to support and encourage people to save for their retirement.