Pensions: Draw-down Charges

Lord Davies of Stamford Excerpts

Tuesday 9th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

That is one of the things that we will look at very closely. Clearly, we need to get evidence of how this particular part of the market develops. We already have transparency in the accumulation phase. If that is necessary in the decumulation phase, we will not hesitate to introduce it.

[Lord Davies of Stamford (Lab)]

My Lords, you do not need to wait to watch the market to believe that transparency is absolutely essential in any honest financial business. Why cannot the Government decide that there should be complete transparency of charges from the beginning? Should they not have decided that at the outset, when they introduced this new reform?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, we have a marketplace and it is fair to give it a chance to develop. At the moment, according to the FT and Which?, the annual charges applied to decumulation pots are somewhere between 0.25% and, for high-end performers, 1%. For the set-up, the charge is somewhere between £70 and £300. As we start to gather this evidence and assess it, we will know whether we need to intervene.