Oral Answers to Questions

Gregg McClymont Excerpts

Monday 5th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

HMRC, which is now responsible for this measure, meets me and others in the Department regularly. We have embedded some DWP employees in the HMRC programme; they are locked together. They are, as I understand it, on time, and they are having constant discussions with large and small employers about the issues and the problems, and assessing what needs to be done to make this happen and to make all the changes. We must remember that all those firms collect those data anyway; the only question is how they report it back within the monthly cycle. We are on top of that but, obviously, we want to keep our eye on the matter.

[Gregg McClymont (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (Lab)]

Small businesses and business more widely rightly demand that the burden Government place on them is as light as possible, but the current restrictions on saving for a pension with the National Employment Savings Trust mean that businesses must deal with multiple pension providers. Last month, the Pensions Minister told me that he was reflecting on whether to remove the restrictions on NEST. Will the Secretary of State confirm that reflection will now turn into action?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I was just discussing the matter with my hon. Friend the Pensions Minister. As the hon. Gentleman knows, we are looking at this right now. Even though we feel sympathetic to what he says, we are still reflecting on the matter.