Pension Schemes Bill

Lord Newby Excerpts

Monday 12th January 2015 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Newby]

29: Clause 47, page 20, line 8, after “members” insert “, and survivors of pension scheme members,”

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, the Government intend that all those who stand to benefit directly from the new pensions flexibilities provided by the Taxation of Pensions Act 2014 should have access to pensions guidance, which will help to empower them to make informed decisions about their pension savings.

The amendments to Clause 47 and Schedule 3 are technical amendments to ensure that this is the case. The amendments in this group adjust the definition of pensions guidance in new Sections 333A and 137FB of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, to extend pensions guidance to survivors of members who have benefits to which the flexibilities will apply, rather than just to members of pension schemes. This is needed because in some circumstances pension schemes may provide benefits to survivors of members of the scheme other than insurance-based products or cash lump sums—that is, flexible benefits—without their becoming members of the scheme. I beg to move.

[Lord McAvoy (Lab)]

My Lords, a large number of government amendments have been tabled for today’s business. The impression given is of last-minute thoughts responding to last-minute contributions and suggestions. If the Government had been doing their groundwork properly, they would not have had to respond to such issues by moving the amendments.

I thank the Minister for doing his best to explain the amendment. I think he has said that these are minor and technical amendments, but can he confirm that that is so and that they do not substantively change the effect of the Bill? Quite frankly, we know what the Government are saying in these amendments. I do not think there has been time to study them very well, so we will reflect on what the Minister has said and consider it very carefully ahead of Report.

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, I can absolutely confirm that these are minor and technical amendments.

Amendment 29 agreed.

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[Lord Freeman (Con)]

My Lords, I find myself in sympathy with the spirit of the amendment but, I am afraid to say, the detail is somewhat defective. The spirit must be right because the more information that can be available and collected accurately, the better, so that the schemes in the Bill can be improved or amended in due course.

I draw the attention of my noble friend the Minister to the comments of the chartered institute and Royal London; first, on eligibility; secondly, on take-up; and, thirdly, on effectiveness. It is not really possible within a short period of time—that is, on an annual basis—to measure accurately the results of this legislation under those three categories. I look forward to what the Minister has to say, whether in response to this amendment or in due course on Report. I very much associate myself—and, I know, some of my colleagues—with the spirit of the amendment but I think the devil is in the detail.

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bradley, for the way in which he moved the amendment, and for setting out some of the broader issues that are covered by a number of groups. I hope the Committee will forgive me if I, too, take my introductory remarks slightly wider than the amendment itself, because I think they are both relevant to this amendment and spill across a number of groups.

First, I draw noble Lords’ attention to the publication today, which the noble Lord, Lord Bradley, referred to, of an update from the Treasury on the implementation of the pensions guidance service. It announced that the brand for the service will be Pension Wise, with the tagline, “Your money, your choice”. This branding will be used by all delivery partners and is designed to be easily recognisable. The HM Government logo will be used to support the Pension Wise brand where appropriate, to underline the credibility of the service. In answer to one of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Bradley, potential scammers and fraudsters should be aware that the Bill introduces a new criminal offence which means that anyone passing themselves off as Pension Wise could face prosecution. I can reassure the noble Lord at this point about the way in which the guidance providers will themselves be regulated, and on the basis for the compliance.

The standards for designated guidance providers are in fact a Financial Conduct Authority instrument, so it is a legal document which it is exercising, I am sure the noble Lord will be pleased to know, under Section 333H, Standards for Giving of Pensions Guidance by Designated Guidance Providers, of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. It is therefore very much a statutory underpinning of all the guidance which guidance providers will have to follow. This is a detailed document to which I will refer later. Also from today, following the publication of the document, individuals have the opportunity to register their interest in early access to the service as part of the piloting activities. The publication also sets out details of how consumers can access and use the guidance, with further information on the progress and costs of implementation. I am sure that noble Lords will find this information useful.

I can assure the House that the Government are committed, in looking at the specific amendment, to a full programme of monitoring and evaluation which will look at the uptake of the guidance as well as how it is achieving its objective of informing consumer decision-making at the point of retirement. I share the noble Lord’s focus on ensuring that we maximise take-up of the guidance, and that is why the Treasury is legislating, through this Bill, to place a duty on the FCA to require pension providers to signpost people to the guidance as they approach retirement.

Last year, the FCA consulted on its proposals for delivering against this duty, and in November published a very detailed policy statement with its near final rules. Following Royal Assent, these rules will require pension providers not only to signpost individuals to the guidance service in wake-up packs issued four to six months ahead of an individual’s nominated retirement date, but to recommend to their customers that they seek guidance or advice whenever a consumer wishes to access their pension fund. That is one of the reasons the Government are announcing the Pension Wise brand now, so that the industry can get ready for these new requirements and start bringing the service to their customers’ attention as soon as possible.

I will clarify a statement I made to the House at Second Reading in response, I think, to the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, on the issue of requirements in the round and progress towards the standardisation of the pension statements that providers will send to their customers approaching retirement. While it is not yet a formal requirement, the Government are clear that progress must be made by industry more quickly. The FCA has clarified in its near final rules that will underpin the guidance service that information about a customer’s pension pot must include, at a minimum, the current value of the pension pot, along with information on guarantees and other relevant special features. Building on this, the Treasury is working with the industry to standardise how the key information is presented. We have made it absolutely clear that the Government consider this to be a key priority. A wide range of respondents to our consultation last year on the pension freedoms made a convincing case that it is necessary to help consumers understand and engage with decisions on what to do with their pension savings. The Government welcome the recent commitment from industry trade bodies to support the development of standardised materials by the Treasury and to encourage their members to use them in communications with their customers as soon as possible.

The Government welcome the FCA’s commitment to consider making such standardisation a mandatory requirement in the wide review of its rules that will take place in the first half of this year. If the trials show that such standardisation helps consumers, I imagine that will be a very strong case for the regulator to require it. We must recognise, however, that not all individuals will seek to take up the guidance offer. It is their choice to do so. They may have other sources of help and advice, such as an independent financial adviser or advice services provided by their employer. We must ensure that consumers know that the guidance service is available and how it can help them, and encourage consumers to use the guidance as far as possible. We must, however, respect the fact that there will be consumers who will be content and equipped, for a variety of reasons, to make decisions without taking guidance. The FCA has introduced a number of safeguards to ensure that consumers are encouraged to seek guidance or, if they do not, are provided with the necessary information to support decision-making.

In summary, it is made clear that firms should not do anything to dissuade customers from getting the guidance. It has reaffirmed the expectation that firms will encourage consumers to shop around on the open market. It has introduced a new requirement that when communicating with customers about accessing their pension funds, firms are required to ask whether they have taken guidance or relevant financial advice and, if not, to encourage them to do so. It has introduced a new requirement on firms to recommend that consumers should seek guidance or advice rather than simply signposting to it. It has also confirmed that firms will be required to give a description of the tax implications of the option selected by a consumer.

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[Lord McKenzie of Luton (Lab)]

My Lords, can the Minister help me on two points which arise from the Pension Wise document we got just this morning? Page 7, which recites progress to date, says that,

“until the service reaches maturity, overall responsibility for service design and implementation will remain within the Treasury”.

Will the Minister expand on that and say at what stage he believes the service will reach maturity?

Page 17 says:

“Telephone and face to face guidance sessions will initially be designed as a single session per consumer, though this will be kept under review”.

Will the Minister say something more about the components of that review? What will be taken into account in determining whether that single session for consumers is adequate?

[Lord Newby]

It is difficult to give a precise answer to the noble Lord’s first question, about maturity. The Treasury is, for good or ill, going to keep its mitts on this process until we are very satisfied that it is working well and is seen to be in a stable and successful state.

As for the single session, noble Lords will be aware that people will be able to access the service either online, on the phone or in person. The hope is that by giving people all the financial information that they require, by encouraging them, in the case of pension providers, and by explaining to people, before they turn up to their session, the kind of information that we are looking for, it will be possible to give adequate guidance in one session. We accept that that will not be enough for some people; they will have forgotten something or a thought will occur to them once they have left. We hope that of those cases, which we hope will be a small minority, a majority will be able to get an adequate response to a specific query by going to the website.

We accept, however, that for some people that will not be the case, and that in a minority of cases some people will need to go back, either to make a subsequent phone call or to have a subsequent meeting. However, we are working very hard to minimise that necessity—because, obviously, getting things right first time will be in everyone’s interest.

[Lord German (LD)]

My Lords, perhaps I could follow the point that my noble friend and the noble Lord opposite have just raised in respect of the same document. Box 2.A on FCA standards requires the people delivering the service to have a range of skills, which are numbered i to viii. I shall refer to a report last week in a newspaper that prints on pink paper, in which it was trying to seek from Citizens Advice and the Pensions Advisory Service the qualities of the people that they would employ. The report in the Financial Times that I am quoting from says:

“Citizens Advice said details of where the”,

agents and case workers,

“would be deployed throughout its … bureaux … were still being finalised. However, it conceded that consumers could be required to make a further appointment if their questions could not be answered during their … guidance sessions”.

That raises two separate issues: one is the quality and skills of the people who are delivering the guidance service, and the other is whether Citizens Advice is on side with the idea of delivering it in one go. The comment seems to suggest that its people may not have answers to the questions that are being raised by those people seeking guidance in their first interview. I wonder whether the range of flexibility on the two is at all appropriate.

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, we are keen to make sure that by the time people have been through the guidance process, they are able to make the best decisions for themselves. As I say, we hope that that will be possible in the vast bulk of cases first time around.

I think that what will happen in giving guidance in this area, as happens elsewhere, is that there will be a number of very special cases, but the vast bulk of people will have the same issues as others. The CAB, which after all has to give advice on the whole benefits system, which if anything is even more complicated than the pensions system, has a proven track record of developing the skills of people, and is very good at this—while this is, of course, what the Pensions Advisory Service does.

So we are confident that there are going to be well qualified people. We are building flexibility into the system—partly by having three ways of accessing it and partly, as I say, by, in exceptional circumstances or in a minority of circumstances, allowing people to go back—and we hope we are going to make sure that at the end of the day people will all have the degree of guidance that they need, relevant to their needs, to enable them to make well informed decisions.

[Lord Bradley]

I thank the Minister for his comprehensive reply, particularly when he said that the Treasury would be keeping its mitts all over the service. I assume that that was meant to be reassuring.

I note that he said that he thought the BBC had got the story wrong today about flat-rate pensions, and I listened with great care to his explanation, which we will need to reflect on very carefully. It is vital that people are clear about what their pension income will be when they are making plans about their whole-pot retirement income. I hope that when I read his response, it will be clear that that information will be available to people well in advance of them taking advice from the CAB, the Pensions Advisory Service or whatever source they may choose, so that they can rely on the figures provided to them by the Pension Service.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

I will speak in favour of my noble friend’s amendment and address two points. The first is the point my noble friend raised about tax leakage and the risks of salary sacrifice arrangements. I draw the Minister’s attention to Clause 54, which looks at the issue of independent advice and provides, not unreasonably, that that will not be a taxable benefit. However, it precludes it from that exemption if it is the subject of a relevant salary sacrifice arrangement, which is defined in the Bill. Rather than rely on a reduction in the annual allowance as, seemingly, the protection against salary sacrifice arrangements and tax leakage, why not simply adopt the same formulation that is adopted in Clause 54 by precluding salary sacrifice arrangements being available on appropriate definitions?

My second point is to try to get a better handle on the Government’s assessment of behavioural change in the early years as a result of these flexibilities. We can do no better than to focus on the tax projections in the Red Book for March 2014 and the Green Book for the Autumn Statement because those must have been underpinned by some detailed calculations. I am not sure that we have seen that detail to date. I hope that the Minister will follow up in writing if he is not able to deal with all the detail today. How many cases of individuals taking lump sums or other drawdown arrangements rather than annuities are included in those estimates? That must have been the basis on which they were adduced. What is the additional aggregate taxable income expected each year until 2020? How many individuals are estimated to pay tax at higher rates as a result than they would under normal annuitisation? We probed this matter on Report in the Commons but did not get a reply. It would be helpful to have that detail as it would give us an understanding of the Government’s assessment of behavioural change and the number of people who will take more of their pension pots under these flexibilities than would if the annuity arrangements only had been available.

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, the two amendments in this group would require the Government to publish two reviews of the impact of pensions flexibility. I start by completely agreeing with the noble Lord, Lord Hutton, that these changes are welcome freedoms and flexibilities but, like all freedoms, they bring some risks that I hope, in a variety of ways, we shall be effective at mitigating.

Noble Lords will not be desperately surprised to hear that I do not believe that these amendments are necessary. First, when considering new Clause 1 and the parts of new Clause 2 which relate to Exchequer revenues, it is important to note that in the Autumn Statement the Government published estimates of the Exchequer impact of the policy as a whole. These costings, which were certified by the independent Office for Budget Responsibility, cover all the changes made to the policy since the Budget as a result of consultation. The total impact of these decisions was set out in table 2.1 of the Autumn Statement document.

To ensure that the Government were being sufficiently transparent, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury wrote to members of the former Taxation of Pensions Bill Committee setting out these costings. I will now outline them for the benefit of the Committee. Further detail on how these costs were calculated is set out in the policy costings document published alongside the Autumn Statement. However, in the letter sent by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury to the members of the former Taxation of Pensions Bill Committee, it was also explained that the costings published as part of the Autumn Statement were based on the same central assumptions that underpinned the costings published at the Budget. Since the Budget, the Government have explored in more detail two aspects of the policy that affect this costing, which takes us to a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Bradley, about the increased cost of salary sacrifice and the increased cost of welfare as a result of the reforms. The Government have produced costings for these, which have been scrutinised by the OBR. In line with standard practice, these are accounted for as changes to the forecast and are not therefore outlined in table 2.1 of the Autumn Statement document.

Given the concern that noble Lords have expressed, it may be helpful if I detail what those figures are. The revisions to the forecast to account for salary sacrifice, which take account of further discussions and considerations since the Budget, are £35 million in 2015-16, £30 million in 2016-17, and £25 million in each of the following three years. When the forecast was revised to account for the increased cost of welfare, the figures rose from £15 million in 2016-17 to £25 million in 2018-19 and 2019-20. The Government have therefore already published the information that these two new clauses are seeking on the Exchequer impacts of various aspects of flexibility, all of which have been certified by the independent OBR. The Government are committed to keeping the policy under review through the monitoring of information collected on tax returns and tax records. Additionally, HMRC regularly publishes data on tax receipts, which will reflect any impacts on the Exchequer. Any such impacts will be reflected in forecasts at future fiscal events and the Government of course keep tax policy under continuous review. Therefore, there is no need, in the Government’s view, for further reviews of the Exchequer impacts of the policy as the Government have already committed to keep these under review through the usual processes.

[Lord Bradley]

I am grateful to the Minister and thank him for his explanation of the figures. I want to be absolutely clear that my example of a person who transfers his salary into his pension pot and saves national insurance in the way that I have described has been fully taken into account in these figures.

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, I believe absolutely that they have. If I am wrong in that, obviously I will write to the noble Lord; but that is the purpose of having initially produced the figures on salary sacrifice and subsequently revised them.

I turn to the other elements of the amendments. Amendment 30B also seeks to require that the Government review the distributional impact of pensions flexibility, no less than 18 months after the Bill takes effect. As set out during debate of the Taxation of Pensions Act, pensions flexibility does not have a direct consequential impact on household incomes. Distributional effects will be driven by the choices that individuals make about how and when to take their pensions. In addition, household income is not necessarily a reliable measure of pension wealth, particularly in the years immediately prior to retirement. It is possible that the impacts of this policy could be misrepresented if we were to review them only against the distribution of household income.

Additionally, Amendment 30B would require the Government to publish behavioural analysis. The costing of tax policies often involves an assessment of the behavioural impact of the measure and, in some cases, the capacity for additional tax planning and avoidance behaviour. These assumptions and methodologies are, of course, certified by the independent OBR. However, as a matter of policy, the Treasury considers that making these detailed behavioural assumptions public can have the potential to affect the behaviour they relate to, and as such can be potentially detrimental to policy-making. The policy costing note published alongside the Autumn Statement explains how the costings have been calculated. This is in line with the principles outlined in the government document Tax Policy Making: A New Approach, which was published alongside the June Budget in 2010.

Amendment 30B would also require the Government to review any impact that pensions flexibility might have on the volume of annuity purchases. Data on the sales of annuities will continue to be available through other channels, such as the data published by trade bodies such as the ABI and publications by individual firms. Therefore we do not think that there is going to be any lack of this information being publicly available, so there is no need for a requirement in the Bill to achieve that.

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham (Lab)]

My Lords, is the Minister saying that the information will be available to departments but that the Government do not wish to publish it because of the behavioural implications it may have, or is he saying that it is too soon to gather that information and therefore they will not actually do so? The problem with the second position is that this change is such that it is almost impossible to change policy direction once it is embedded because of the nature of the policy changes, which to my mind are extravagantly at risk. As a result, the Minister is denying Parliament the opportunity to make the modifications before that degree of risk is permanently embedded in public policy.

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, I was saying that the Government have made an assessment of behavioural changes and they have produced figures which take those changes into account. Therefore, there has been a full assessment of the behavioural changes as best as can be done in advance of the change coming into effect. As I said, it is Treasury policy not to publish those assumptions but that work has been done. In terms of the cost to the Exchequer of this policy change, the figures were published at the time of the Budget and were subsequently revised, as I set out, at the time of the Autumn Statement.

[Lord Hutton of Furness]

My Lords, presumably that information will be subject to freedom of information requests.

[Lord Newby]

That, my Lords, is an extremely interesting question to which I do not know the answer.

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

In that case, my Lords, the Minister is saying that we are being given the assumptions that go into the forecasts but we are not going to be given the information to see whether those forecasts are accurate.

[Lord Newby]

I am saying that in a whole raft of areas, no doubt under successive Governments, the Treasury has made behavioural assumptions. When I used to work in Customs and Excise, that was certainly the case when asking what would happen if the duty on whisky was put up. A whole raft of behavioural assumptions is made in policy-making and I do not think that it has been the policy to make those behavioural assumptions public. What obviously has been, and will remain, policy is to set out the impact of those behavioural changes. The noble Baroness shakes her head. Perhaps when she was a Minister behavioural assumptions were made available. My understanding is that that has not been the policy but I will go back to the Treasury and check.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

I wonder whether the Minister can help me. It seems to me that there is potentially a difference with behavioural change which is incidental to the fundamental policy issue. However, here we are talking about a system where the change and the data underlying the tax issues are absolutely fundamental—it is what the whole policy change is about. Just to be clear on that, the Budget Red Book for 2014 refers to extra tax in 2015-16 of £320 million, £600 million the year after, £910 million the year after that and £1.2 billion the year after that. I think we understand that work has been done on those figures and that the Office for Budget Responsibility has accepted them as realistic. However, as I understand it, the Government are not going to tell us the basis on which those figures have been derived. They are not going to give us the opportunity to make any judgment as to whether, ultimately, we support the policy.

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, I was simply saying that my understanding is that it is a long-standing convention regarding the behavioural assumptions that go into producing those figures. The only other thing I would say is that today we have seen another, very different, estimate of the costs. There is a very considerable degree of uncertainty about the figures at the moment but the Government made their best estimate at the time of the Budget and they amended it in the light of further consideration at the time of the Autumn Statement. They will obviously keep the situation under review as we see what people do rather than speculate about how the policy will work.

The noble Lord, Lord Bradley, asked about the effects of the new policy and flexible access on eligibility for means-tested benefits—in particular, social care. The policy aim is to ensure that the decisions people make in choosing between taking their pension as income and keeping more of their pension as capital and drawing it out periodically do not significantly impact on how they are assessed for social care support and how their means are assessed for social security purposes. New statutory guidance and regulations under the Care Act were published on 23 October. They include details on the changing rules for care and support.

In respect of social security, we announced a change in the rule for people above pension credit qualifying age who claim means-tested benefits. The notional income amount applied to pension pots which have not been used to purchase an annuity will be reduced from 150% to 100% of the income from an equivalent annuity, or to the actual income taken if that is higher, in line with the rules for care and support.

The noble Lord, Lord Bradley, asked about unwinding annuities already bought. This is not government policy. It was a suggestion of my colleague Steve Webb, the Pensions Minister, in the context of future Liberal Democrat party policy. It was not a statement of government policy.

I am sure that there are other specific issues raised by noble Lords in this debate to which I have not given a full answer. I will read it again.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

I promise not to delay the Committee any longer. However, I would just refer to the point about why the Government have not taken the opportunity to specifically deny the benefit of the flexibilities when there are salary sacrifice arrangements. They have done it in another small part of the Bill, so it is technically achievable. Why have they eschewed that—to allow at least some element of salary sacrifice arrangements to have the tax benefits that they are designed to?

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, one thing I have not responded adequately to—and I am not sure whether what I am going to say will adequately answer the noble Lord’s point, but I will write to him if I do not—is about salary sacrifice and the question about the £10,000 allowance, which the noble Lord, Lord Bradley, and others, referred to.

The £10,000 allowance is, we think, a sensible middle way to allow the majority of people the flexibility to withdraw or contribute to their pension as they choose from age 55, while also ensuring that individuals do not use the new flexibility to avoid paying tax on their current earnings. However, there are clearly circumstances in which it will be in an individual’s best interests to gain access to part of the pension pot early—at 55 or 56—while by the time they are 60 their circumstances have changed and they can then start contributing again to a pension. We did not want to deny that entirely. Equally, as noble Lords have said, we did not want individuals recycling money out of pension pots just in order to avoid tax. It is therefore a pragmatic compromise figure which we think strikes the right balance.

[Lord Bradley]

I again thank the Minister for his detailed response. In relation to buying out annuities, the Minister is right—the article in the Sunday Times did state that Steve Webb was a Liberal Democrat. However, it also stated that he was the Pensions Minister. I am sure that this is part of the tensions of coalition as we head towards the general election.

I am grateful for the support for this amendment from the noble Lords, Lord Hutton and Lord McKenzie, both of whom are experts in this field and bring great value to our deliberations. I am grateful to the Minister for clarifying some of the points regarding social care, although again I suspect that there may be further devil in the detail that we may debate further this afternoon.

The Minister’s response made the most compelling case for why we need the review brought back to Parliament with all the information gathered in a coherent and digestible way. In his response to our amendment he identified various sources of information in various departments, and it would take great expertise to beaver away and gather all that information into a form that enables enlightened and informed debate, not only in this House but in Parliament generally, and—in terms of transparency—for the public to understand fully the implications of these amendments.

We need to look carefully at the way in which information is gathered, disseminated and presented to Parliament. This amendment was a very good start for the revolution that is likely to take place in pension provision and how freedoms and flexibilities are used by the public. For today, however, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.