George Kerevan
Main Page: George Kerevan (Scottish National Party - East Lothian)Department Debates - View all George Kerevan's debates with the HM Treasury
Guaranteed Income for Retirees
George Kerevan Excerpts(8 years, 5 months ago)
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Ian Blackford
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his contribution. I agree that all of us in this House have a responsibility to ensure that an adequate level of protection is in place for consumers. We must learn from the large number of mis-selling scandals that have happened over many years. I am concerned that, as things stand, there are not yet adequate safeguards in place to protect consumers from the changes.
The Work and Pensions Committee described the scarcity of information about Pension Wise as being
“not conducive to effective scrutiny”
and asked the Government to publish statistics on a quarterly basis, including on the take-up of the different channels of guidance and advice, and on the reasons for not taking them up. The FCA claims that eight out of 10 savers would have got a better deal if they had shopped around when choosing the best product for retirement. That illustrates another reason for clear, understandable, accessible guidance for consumers. The untested nature of the reform demands close monitoring and data collection.
George Kerevan (East Lothian) (SNP)
I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. To add to what he has said, when I questioned the FCA in the Select Committee on the Treasury, they said they were worried that not enough time had been given for new products to emerge for savers drawing down their pension pot. The Chancellor announced the change rather precipitously, and a longer timescale might have allowed those new products to emerge.
Ian Blackford
I agree with my hon. Friend, although I come back to the fundamental point that what we need is reform of the annuity market. I am not sure that the products that may come to the market over the coming period will do what we need them to do, in allowing the level of consumer protection and choice that we are talking about.
Witnesses to the inquiry by the Work and Pensions Committee, such as the Financial Services Consumer Panel and the Pensions Policy Institute, said that it was essential to enable the policy to develop in the light of experience. The Committee recommended that the Government publish regularly data encompassing
“customer characteristics including pension pot size and other sources of retirement income…take-up of each channel of guidance and advice…reasons given for not taking up guidance and advice…subsequent decisions taken; and…reasons given for those decisions.”