Pensions Bill

David Mowat Excerpts

Monday 17th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Dame Anne Begg]

I welcome the reduction in means-testing, but the hon. Gentleman should be aware that there are two different types of pension credit. There is the savings credit, which the Bill is abolishing completely; that means that someone with savings but no other income might be worse off than someone who has no savings. The savings credit tended to be more complicated, and people found it difficult to judge whether or not they qualified for it. The people eligible for savings credit were generally those who had a little saved or were a bit above the minimum, but those people tended to believe that they did not qualify for anything because they had never qualified for anything before. The take-up among those who qualified for just the minimum income guarantee part of pension credit, on the other hand, was well over 90%. I do not want the hon. Gentleman to be confused over the fact that large numbers of people were not claiming what they were entitled to in pension credit. Very often, the savings credit might have qualified people for only about 50p a week, so they thought that it was not worth going through the bureaucracy. I know this from conversations I have had with my constituents.

The hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) mentioned that the Work and Pensions Committee undertook pre-legislative scrutiny, but we scrutinised only part 1 of the Bill. That was our remit. I shall say no more about the fact that the start date was accelerated, as I recall laying into the Minister for that when we last debated the issue on the Floor of the House. We took no evidence on the later parts of the Bill, the most controversial of which is probably the issue of raising the pension age. The many briefings I have received from various organisations have focused their criticisms mainly on that issue.

The impression has been created that, if there is to be a review every five years, the pension age will increase every five years, which has frightened quite a number of people, as it seems to underpin a never-ending increase in the pension age. That is why my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley—I call him my hon. Friend because he sits on our Select Committee—was wondering, given his present age, how old he will be before he receives any kind of state pension. I know how he might feel. I have said here before that as someone born in 1955, I have been hit by all the increases. I was of the generation of women who, under the Pensions Act 1995, would not receive a state pension until 65. I had accepted that and was planning for that, but the Government then introduced an acceleration up to 66 for 2020, so I can well understand why some women feel that they never seem able to reach their state pension age because the Government are continually moving the goalposts. That thinking may well be behind some of the anxieties expressed in many of the briefings I have received on the pension age provisions.

Other issues concerning not just the state pension but the pensions landscape are not covered in the Bill, even though the Select Committee produced reports on them. The hon. Member for Amber Valley mentioned that we published a report on the governance of pension schemes, in which we recommended that the Government should consider making a single regulator responsible for pensions. He has also set out some of the Select Committee’s concerns about the present regulatory framework, particularly regarding the gaps or confusion about exactly which body is responsible for which parts of the regulations.

Ultimately, pensions must be well regulated, because we have to rebuild trust in them so that people know that if they invest in a pension they will get a good income from it and not be ripped off by a pension company. They want to know that the charges they pay for their pensions are fair, that there are no hidden charges and that nothing pertaining to their pension has not been properly explained to them. It is really important for people to have that faith in the pensions industry and for the pensions industry to step up to the plate and ensure that it offers very good, well-regulated products that are not overly expensive.

We also produced a report about the lifting of restrictions on the National Employment Savings Trust. If the Government are to make sense of auto-enrolment and if indeed they are to get rid of what was the state second-tier pension in SERPS, or S2P, it is crucial that a state-backed second-tier pension is available, and that default option should always be NEST. In saying which restrictions should be lifted, we said only that the transfers in and out and the cap should be lifted; we did not say that the restriction on NEST always to have a public service duty should be lifted, as we thought that was absolutely right. There has to be a default scheme that cannot turn anyone away. If NEST is to undertake that important work, it will be unfair if some of the restrictions have not been lifted. I hope that, as the Bill goes through its stages here and in the other place, the Government will come up with some proposals to change the present restrictions that are hampering NEST’s ability to do business.

The Government have accepted some other elements of the Select Committee’s report. The implementation date is now in the Bill and it has also been specified that the minimum qualifying years should be no more than 10 years. It was the hon. Member for Amber Valley again who argued for exactly that, and we were happy to accept it as one of our recommendations.

During today’s debate, it has become clear that a good communications strategy is crucial. There is no doubt that when the single-tier pension was first mooted, everyone thought that those who were born on the day before the relevant date would receive £107 a week, while those who were born the day after would receive £144. I think that people still have that impression, and that it is still felt that the new system will be more generous to everyone. Well, it will be more generous to some—the self-employed will probably do slightly better out of it—but those who have assumed that all their second tier of pension will be covered by the state earnings-related pension scheme or by the state second pension may be worse off in the long term.

It is incumbent on the Government to try to deal with some of those misunderstandings. I assume that they have sent a letter to every woman who is within 10 years of pension age, because I received such a letter, but the letter that I received was very vague, and—as has already been pointed out today—not everyone knows how many years of credit they have in their state pension, because not everyone understands what work qualifies for credit and what work does not.

It is crucial for us to warn people who are close to retirement that they must have made national insurance contributions for 35 years rather than 30. Some have already retired under the misapprehension that they have contributed the full amount. It must be made clear to them that they can buy back national insurance years, they must be told how they can do that, and it must be ensured that they do not buy back years that will give them no extra income.

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

I have been reflecting on what the hon. Lady said about the National Employment Savings Trust. It is clear that NEST is directionally right and that a passive, low-cost investment vehicle is needed, but there are a great many restrictions that will prevent it from competing fairly with the existing industry in the marketplace. Did the Select Committee give any thought to what could be done about some of those restrictions?

[Dame Anne Begg]

We did indeed. We did not consider it during our pre-legislative scrutiny, because the issue is not covered by the Bill—there is some regret about that—but we did consider it in our governance report. We also published a separate report recommending the lifting of the cap on NEST and the removal of restrictions on transfers in and out of it. If the Government’s “pot follows member” proposal—which is in the Bill—is to work, the restriction on transfers must go, because otherwise anyone who has or is about to have savings in NEST will not be able to be followed by their pension pot when they move from one employer to another.

[David Mowat]

The “pot follows member” proposal interests me as well. Did the Select Committee give any thought to the use of NEST as a vehicle for aggregation? That strikes me as a natural way of going down a different route.

[Dame Anne Begg]

We did indeed. In fact, that was the favoured option of many of our witnesses. The Government did not listen, and opted for “pot follows member”, but we, and a number of witnesses, thought that NEST would be ideal as the source of an aggregated fund.

The communications strategy must also make it clear that savings credit will end when the single-tier pension is introduced. However, one of the main issues dealt with by the Select Committee was the issue of women—for it is usually women who are affected—who currently depend on the pension contributions of a partner or husband and whose pensions are therefore based on derived rights, because that system will end. The Committee recommended that women within 10 years of pension age should continue to enjoy those rights, because in less than 10 years they would not have time to build up a contribution record that would enable them to receive any kind of state pension in their own right. That, we thought, was very unfair, given that all the household planning might depend on the assumption that the wife would receive 60% of the husband’s basic pension.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

Like many other Government Members, I strongly support the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb) described it as bringing simplicity and fairness. He also described it as a “brave” Bill, although I assume that he did not mean that in the “Yes, Minister” sense. It will reduce complexity and regularise the treatment of women, but I want to talk about the way in which it will interact with the private sector pensions industry. I also want to build on some of the comments made by the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore).

There is an elephant in the room when we talk about pensions provision in this country. The fact is that, even when the Bill has increased the basic state pension, that provision will not be enough for most people unless it is supplemented by the private pensions industry. Broadly speaking, pension provision in this country can be divided into thirds: one third of people are in public sector pensions, one third are in the private sector, and a third have no pension provision at all. For that middle third who are in the private sector, it is almost certain that their pension pot will not be large enough.

We have heard Members talking about the comparison between private and public sector pensions, and Parliament has debated public sector pensions endlessly. We have probably ended up in a good place in that regard. Someone cashing in an inflation-proofed pension of £15,000 a year—a self-invested personal pension, for example—at the age of 65, would have a pot of £400,000. For most people in the public sector, the value of their pension is likely to be higher than the value of their house.

The size of the median pot in the private sector is about £10,000. That is partly due to poor savings ratios. This matters, because our country has chosen to go with a pension system that is different from those in most of Europe, where there is higher basic state provision and no assumption that, by paying out tax relief, the private sector will somehow come through. The fact that the private sector has failed in this country represents a time bomb, and I shall analyse why that is the case. We need to look at that time bomb, even though there are some good things in the Bill.

One reason that people are not saving is that there is massive distrust of the industry. I have many colleagues in the private sector who would almost cut their arms off than invest in the pensions market. They would do anything to avoid doing that. They would buy houses to rent, for example. Perhaps that is a rational response to a market that has failed. I am a free marketeer. I sit on this side of the Chamber and I believe in markets. If they work, they get rid of supernormal profits and unfair advantages, and all that goes with that. However, they will not do that when there is an asymmetry of information in the market, and when that market has failed. I would contend that the market for private sector pensions falls into that category.

We have the highest pension charges in the world, according to Cass business school’s pensions institute. I know that we are coming out of a period of relatively low returns and that the numbers are therefore suspect, but someone could be spending 50% of their pension pot on charges, and 2.5% compounded over a few years does that to someone unless things are going up. There is absolutely no evidence of economies of scale in our larger funds, which is completely unlike the situation in the United States, where charges come down as the size of funds goes up.

We have too many pension funds. When I open the Financial Times, I see that there are more funds than there are equities, which is extraordinary. That is indicative of a market that has not had to consolidate because it has not been put under pressure by market forces. We also have exploitative techniques. I will not go into that in great detail, but the fact that active member discount has gone on for so long—there are now proposals to get rid of it—is extraordinary.

The way to make a market work better is to make it transparent. I have spoken with the Minister about the industry and I know that he is trying to make it move in that direction, and I respect that. The industry—I used to work in business, and in fact in the same business as the shadow Secretary of State—in my opinion is doing what we sometimes did: playing it long. It knows that it is making unacceptable profits and that that will have to change, because eventually this place will get around to fixing it. In such a situation, it plays it long. It is beginning to regularise charges and to talk about annual management charges, but of course that is different from total expense ratios. There are entrance fees, exit fees, churn fees and trailing commissions. I have a double maths A-level, an engineering degree and I am a chartered accountant, and I can just about understand this stuff. The idea that most people who are having to buy pensions could be educated to such a degree that they could make the market work is ridiculous. The market knows that and the result is a median pension pot of £10,000. It is a crisis, even with the welcome response that Government Front Benchers are putting forward tonight.

Auto-enrolment is clearly the right thing to do, but it makes it even more important to fix this issue, because we are now semi-making people invest their money in a market, and if the market is not working because we cannot be bothered to fix it, that is a moral issue. I talked earlier about NEST. I think that a low-cost passive tracker is exactly what is needed. I do not have a particular liking of state-based solutions, but I return to the fact that the market has failed. I understand that the Office of Fair Trading is conducting an inquiry into fund charges—the Minister nods his head—which I welcome. By my remarks I am not implying that we are doing nothing; I am implying that this remains an issue. The words I used—I would like them to be remembered—is that the industry is playing it long and that this is now a moral issue.

There is new stuff coming out, and I think that the Association of British Insurers has said that the charge is 0.54%, and that that is reasonable. It would be reasonable if it were not for the fact that so many people are being auto-enrolled into old funds that have much higher profit ratios. I really wonder what that 0.54% even means. Is it a total expense ratio or an annual management charge? How many of the other millions of charges that generally are not included are counted within that figure? The whole thing needs to be fixed.

What would I like the Government to do? Well, we should strengthen NEST. As I have said, I would prefer the private sector to come up with solutions to make the market work, but it has failed to do so and the time has come to act. Denmark has very low charges on pensionable assets, and it has achieved that through something very similar to NEST, and other countries are moving in that direction.

I have not yet talked about the portability of pensions. I read the Select Committee report on the issue. I am surprised that we have gone for the solution of having the pension follow the employee into their next job. I have not done the analysis, and the issue requires a lot of that, but that does not feel to me to be the optimum solution for the employee.

I do not often agree with the TUC, but I believe that its representatives have said that, based on their analysis, an aggregator would appear to have been a better solution. If we have done what we have done because of the survey cited in the Select Committee report and other sources, that is not a good reason. If we ask 100 people, 98 of whom might understand the fundamentals, whether they would like to take their pension to the next job or to an aggregator, I really doubt that they would understand.

If the survey is the basis of the analysis that has been done, it is a cop-out. That said, if there is analysis out there that says that what has been chosen is the right way, so be it.

[Steve Webb]

indicated assent.

[David Mowat]

The Minister is nodding, so I will not push the point. However, we are in the new world of portfolio careers, where people change jobs eight, nine or 10 times, with entrance and exit charges every time. I find the point hard to see, but okay.

I have four suggestions for the Bill Committee; if any Whips are listening, I should say that I will not be a part of it. I think there is a case for a cap. The industry sometimes says that a cap would drive down innovation, but we do not need more innovation—we need solid, passive investments that we leave and let go for a long time.

I would like there to be more enforced simplicity. We should look at what the Department of Energy and Climate Change has done with electricity and gas charges. It has insisted that bands should be brought in so that there is comparability and consumers can say, “I’ll go with them” rather than being swamped in a myriad of complexity. Pensions are massively more material to the well-being of most people than utility bills, yet they are massively more complex. Perhaps we could consider standard charges and standard comparisons of the annuity market, so that when people choose an annuity they are much more able to make a reasoned decision. The Cooper reforms in Australia are an example of that, and I would like us to move down that route.

I have given annuity transfers a great deal of thought. I know that the market is saying that people will be sent letters to ensure that they have checked out the market before they go with their base supplier. Personally, I think there is a case for saying that the base supplier should not be allowed to provide an annuity. If we really want to force the market to work, we should do something such as that. If we are going to leave the matter with the base supplier or the organisation that the person has saved with, we could ensure that they register so that we know that people have properly considered the option of going elsewhere.

Finally, I turn to tax relief. I said at the start that our pension system has a structure different from that of a lot of countries in Europe. We have smaller basic provision; we then give a lot of tax relief and hope that the private market will take care of the situation. We spend about £30 billion a year on tax relief.

[Mr Byrne]

It is £44 billion.

[David Mowat]

I am told that the figure is £44 billion: a lot of money. It behoves us—it behoved the last Government, as well—to ensure that that money is spent effectively in a targeted way. My concern is that that money is part of the reason why the charge rates in our market are higher than in other countries and that effectively, our tax relief, whether £30 billion or £44 billion, is going into property prices in Kensington and Chelsea and not into people’s annuities and pension value.

Before I sit down, I want to reiterate that auto-enrolment, which I have been going on about for the past couple of years, has made it even more important for us to fix the situation. The industry cannot be left to play it long and hope that we take a long time to do something about the abuses.