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 received face to face guidance from the Pension Advisory Service in each of the last five years.
Answered by Steve Webb
The Pensions Advisory Service provides information and guidance over multiple distribution channels including by telephone, web chat, online and written enquiries and face to face via outreach activity. The outreach activity includes shows, forums and similar events. All guidance is tailored to the individuals' personal circumstances.
The data for the last five years are set out in the table below:
Year | 2009/2010 | 2010/2011 | 2011/2012 | 2012/2013 | 2013/2014 |
Helpline customers Includes calls, online enquiries, webchats and 1st party complaints | 99,663 | 87,712 | 93,505 | 84,228 |
76,348 (as at 28th February)
|
Outreach work | 6,457 people spoken to at TPAS events/presentations | 7,577 | 3,786 | 1,091 | 1,400 estimate to date |
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 assessment he has made of the effect of the planned changes to pensions on the investment strategy of the National Employment Savings Trust.
Answered by Steve Webb
The investment strategy for the National Employment Savings Trust (NEST) is the responsibility of the NEST Trustees who will consider, if in the best interests of their members, there needs to be any change in NEST's investment approach.
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 assessment he has made of the effect of the planned changes to pensions on opt-out rates of auto enrolment.
Answered by Steve Webb
The Budget announced that from April 2015, the tax rules for how people access their defined contribution pension savings will be simplified to allow individuals aged 55 or over to withdraw their savings however they wish, subject to their marginal rate of income tax.
Allowing individuals to exercise greater choice over how they access their retirement savings may mean that some people who would have previously chosen to opt out may no longer do so. This is more likely to have an effect on the choices of older workers.
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 the upper limit will be of the amount of state pension top-up people can buy.
Answered by Steve Webb
As announced in the Budget 2014, the maximum amount of additional State Pension that individuals can obtain under the State Pension top-up scheme (Class 3A) will be £25 per week. We intend to make details available shortly of the contribution rates by age for each £1 per week of additional pension.
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 public purse of the top-up of state pensions for each of the next 20 financial years.
Answered by Steve Webb
Estimates were made of both the future AME expenditure and the revenue from contributions in 2015-16 and 2016-17 which would determine future state pension expenditure levels. Estimates made by the Department were certified by the Office for Budget Responsibility. Figures for the medium term impacts in cash terms were published on page 46 in Budget 2014: policy costings available at:
Further information on the long-term Exchequer impact in 2013-14 price terms is included in the table below. As noted in the policy costings document, there is uncertainty about levels of take-up of this policy. If take-up was higher than assumed both AME and Revenue would increase and if take-up was lower than assumed then both would decrease.
| AME | Revenue |
2014-15 | 0 | 0 |
2015-16 | -15 | +415 |
2016-17 | -50 | +410 |
2017-18 | -65 | 0 |
2018-19 | -65 | 0 |
2019-20 | -60 | 0 |
2020-21 | -60 | 0 |
2021-22 | -55 | 0 |
2022-23 | -55 | 0 |
2023-24 | -55 | 0 |
2024-25 | -50 | 0 |
2025-26 | -45 | 0 |
2026-27 | -45 | 0 |
2027-28 | -40 | 0 |
2028-29 | -40 | 0 |
2029-30 | -35 | 0 |
2030-31 | -35 | 0 |
2031-32 | -30 | 0 |
2032-33 | -30 | 0 |
2033-34 | -25 | 0 |
Notes to table: Figures are in £m, 2013-14 price terms, rounded to nearest £5m.
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 assessment he made of the effect of the option for people to top up their state pension on state pensions expenditure.
Answered by Steve Webb
Estimates were made of both the future AME expenditure and the revenue from contributions in 2015-16 and 2016-17 which would determine future state pension expenditure levels. Estimates made by the Department were certified by the Office for Budget Responsibility. Figures for the medium term impacts in cash terms were published on page 46 in Budget 2014: policy costings available at:
Further information on the long-term Exchequer impact in 2013-14 price terms is included in the table below. As noted in the policy costings document, there is uncertainty about levels of take-up of this policy. If take-up was higher than assumed both AME and Revenue would increase and if take-up was lower than assumed then both would decrease.
| AME | Revenue |
2014-15 | 0 | 0 |
2015-16 | -15 | +415 |
2016-17 | -50 | +410 |
2017-18 | -65 | 0 |
2018-19 | -65 | 0 |
2019-20 | -60 | 0 |
2020-21 | -60 | 0 |
2021-22 | -55 | 0 |
2022-23 | -55 | 0 |
2023-24 | -55 | 0 |
2024-25 | -50 | 0 |
2025-26 | -45 | 0 |
2026-27 | -45 | 0 |
2027-28 | -40 | 0 |
2028-29 | -40 | 0 |
2029-30 | -35 | 0 |
2030-31 | -35 | 0 |
2031-32 | -30 | 0 |
2032-33 | -30 | 0 |
2033-34 | -25 | 0 |
Notes to table: Figures are in £m, 2013-14 price terms, rounded to nearest £5m.
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 of pensionable age providing unpaid childcare support.
Answered by Steve Webb
The information requested is not available. The Childcare and Early Years Survey of Parents estimates that grandparents provided informal childcare for 1.8m children in 1.4m families in 2012/13 with 4% of these families making some form of payment to the grandparent. We are unable to identify the ages of these grandparents; previous studies have shown that around half of grandparents are aged over 65.
Source for grandparent age distribution:
Source for Childcare and Early Years Survey of Parents:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/childcare-and-early-years-survey-of-parents-2012-to-2013
Asked by: Gregg McClymont (Labour - Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what assessment he has made of the potential risk of losses to the public purse arising from applying the current accounting officer conventions in the period leading up to the referendum on Scottish independence in 2014.
Answered by Danny Alexander
I have been asked to reply on behalf of the Treasury.
The UK Government is not planning for independence as it believes that people in Scotland will vote to remain within the UK. As such, the Government has made no assessment of the risk of losses to the public purse, and has no plans to change accounting officers conventions
Asked by: Gregg McClymont (Labour - Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what discussions he has had with officials in his Department on how the accounting officers' conventions would apply to investment in Scotland in advance of the referendum on Scottish independence in 2014.
Answered by Danny Alexander
I have been asked to reply on behalf of the Treasury.
The UK Government is not planning for independence as it believes that people in Scotland will vote to remain within the UK. As such, the Government has made no assessment of the risk of losses to the public purse, and has no plans to change accounting officers conventions