Quality Workplace Pensions

Angus Brendan MacNeil Excerpts

Thursday 27th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

Many will welcome the overdue cap and the possibility of lowering it further. On the pre-2001 schemes, may I press the Minister to act as soon as possible, because far too many people have lost too much money already to countenance much further delay?

[Steve Webb]

The hon. Gentleman is right. One of the problems, as with transparency, is that we do not know enough about the nature of these schemes and what the charges are. In some cases, they are high-charging but come with guarantees, so people are getting something for their money. An audit is going on at the moment. The pensions industry is having to produce a lot of information about all these schemes. That is often very difficult because pension companies have been bought, sold and merged; just getting the data is the first challenge. As soon as we know exactly what is going on and what further measures we can take to improve the welfare of consumers, I assure him we will do so.