Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

Monday 5th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hoban]

The hon. Lady should examine some of the schemes that the previous Government introduced, under which people were paid regardless of the outcome—regardless of whether they helped people get back into work. Our Work programme pays people by results; it ensures that contractors are paid only where people get jobs, and sustainable jobs at that.

[Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)]

8. What steps he is taking to protect members of pension schemes from being incentivised to transfer their pensions.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)]

The Government have worked closely with the pensions industry to address concerns regarding incentive exercises. As a result, an industry code of practice was published in June, which we fully support. A monitoring board has been established to evaluate the effectiveness of the code.

[Lorely Burt]

I am grateful for that answer. Can my hon. Friend provide evidence on the number of companies that have signed up to the code of practice? Is it achieving its objectives?

[Steve Webb]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that. The industry’s response to the code has been very encouraging. Some 49 individual firms and, perhaps more importantly, 14 representative organisations have publicly signed up to support the code, and the figures are growing. The supporters include the major employee benefit consultancies engaged in these exercises and their representative organisations.