Asked by: Gregg McClymont (Labour - Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people (a) were eligible for and (b) participated in the Work Programme in Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East constituency in each month since October 2012.
Answered by Esther McVey
In response to the first question, those eligible for the Work Programme are referred to it and therefore eligibility is reflected by referral numbers.
Information on those referred to the Work Programme, by parliamentary constituency, is published and can be found at:
http://tabulation-tool.dwp.gov.uk/WorkProg/tabtool.html
Guidance for users is available at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dwp-tabulation-tool-guidance
Asked by: Gregg McClymont (Labour - Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent estimate he has made of the number of people who will reach state pension age within 12 months from the start of the single tier pension who will be eligible to receive state pension at the full rate; and what proportion of the total number of recipients those people will be.
Answered by Steve Webb
I will respond to the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East shortly.
Asked by: Gregg McClymont (Labour - Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent estimate he has made of the number of (a) women and (b) men who will reach state pension age within 12 months from the start of the single tier pension who will be eligible to receive state pension at the full rate.
Answered by Steve Webb
I will respond to the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East shortly.
Asked by: Gregg McClymont (Labour - Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people have fallen below the auto enrolment threshold in each year since that policy was introduced.
Answered by Steve Webb
Under the Pensions Act 2008, the automatic enrolment earnings trigger is reviewed by the Secretary of State every year, and revised if necessary. Since automatic enrolment was introduced in October 2012, two annual reviews to the trigger have been conducted. The table shows the impact of changes to the earnings trigger.
Earnings trigger revised | Number of individuals in eligible target group excluded | |||
From | To | |||
2012/13 | £8,105 | 2013/14 | £9,440 | 420,000 |
2013/14 | £9,440 | 2014/15 | £10,000 | 170,000 |
Table 1: Impact of changes to the automatic enrolment earnings trigger in each of the two annual reviews since the policy was introduced.
Note: The figures refer to the eligible target group in the private sector. This includes individuals aged 22 to the State Pension age who earn above the earnings trigger and are not in a qualifying pension scheme.
Asked by: Gregg McClymont (Labour - Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether he proposes that his planned charge cap on workplace pensions from April 2015 will apply to new collective defined contribution schemes.
Answered by Steve Webb
The Government's Defined Ambition Bill will bring new forms of collective pension arrangements to the UK, and it is vital that member protection, good governance and fair charges remain at the heart of this system.
Details of how any charge cap may be applied to Collective Defined Contribution schemes will be in place before this legislation is commenced.
Asked by: Gregg McClymont (Labour - Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people are below the earnings threshold for auto enrolment into a workplace pension in each (a) region, (b) constituent part of the UK and (c) parliamentary constituency.
Answered by Steve Webb
The information is not available in the format requested.
Asked by: Gregg McClymont (Labour - Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people made requests of the pension tracing service to find lost pension pots in each year since May 2010; and how many of these were successful.
Answered by Steve Webb
Table below shows the total number of Pension Trace requests and those which were successful. Successful Pension Traces are where we are able to provide a customer with contact details of the pension administrator for the particular company or employer they had worked for.
1st April 10 to 31st March 11 | Total 76,453 Successful 66,586 |
1st April 11 to 31st March 12 | Total 77,757 Successful 67,068 |
1st April 12 to 31st March 13 | Total 107,335 Successful 94,354 |
1st April 13 to 31st March 14 | Total 144,169 Successful 126,904 |
Source:
The data is from the Pension Tracing System
Asked by: Gregg McClymont (Labour - Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate he has made of the cost to the average UK saver of delaying the pensions charge cap from April 2014 to April 2015.
Answered by Steve Webb
There has been no delay to the default fund charge cap. The Government has announced that it will put in place a charge cap set at 0.75% of funds under management for the default funds of all schemes used for automatic enrolment from April 2015. This means we will deliver on the timetable in our consultation document to have a full cap for all qualifying schemes in place by April 2015.
Asked by: Gregg McClymont (Labour - Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate he has made of the minimum income per annum required during an individual's working life to prevent the need to claim means-tested benefits in retirement.
Answered by Steve Webb
No such estimate has been made.
The single-tier pension will be set above the level of the Standard Minimum Guarantee for a single person. This means that for people reaching State Pension age from April 2016 onwards, anyone who has built up 35 qualifying years through National Insurance contributions and credits should have an income above the level of the basic means test, regardless of how much they earned during their working life.
Some pensioners will still require means-tested support, and at a given level of retirement income an individual's eligibility will depend on a number of factors. These include the level and nature of their housing costs, whether they are single or in a couple, whether they have additional needs associated with caring or severe disability and whether they reached State Pension age before or after the introduction of the single-tier pension.
Whether or not a particular salary level in working life would lead to an income in retirement that is high enough to avoid eligibility for any means-tested benefits will also depend on the choices an individual makes, including how much of their income to save for retirement.
Asked by: Gregg McClymont (Labour - Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he plans to take to prevent private sector companies providing incentives for their employees to switch from defined benefit to defined contribution pension arrangements.
Answered by Steve Webb
We already have powers in place to legislate to ban cash incentive transfers. The incentive exercises code of good practice was created in 2012, and set out seven key principles that pension providers and their advisers must adhere to if they wish to offer their members incentives, including ensuring that members are given sufficient information to enable them to make an informed decision.
A large number of providers and independent financial advisers have signed up to the code, delivering a prompt solution to address this issue. The Government would encourage all providers to comply with the code.
Following the Budget announcement HM Treasury are currently running a consultation, “Freedom of Choice in Pensions” where it is considering whether people with a defined benefit pension should be allowed to transfer their accrued benefits into a defined contribution scheme. The outcome of this consultation will inform our thinking on what additional action, if any, the Government should take to restrict or ban pension providers from offering incentives