Pension Schemes (Conversion of Guaranteed Minimum Pensions) Bill (Morning sitting)

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 2nd February 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. I thank the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West for her work on this important Bill. As has been said, the Bill has potential repercussions for millions of people’s pensions. We support the measures to simplify a complicated system and make it much fairer.

I will use my time today to ask a series of questions, which I hope the Minister will address. In particular, I want to ask him about communication, consultation, the requirement to notify HMRC and the wider imbalances between men’s and women’s pensions.

On communication, I have a fundamental question. How have the changes been communicated to those affected? Obviously, we are dealing with a large number of people, going back to the cohort who have been saving for their pensions from 1978. I am afraid that the Government do not have a good track record of communicating changes to the state pension. According to many commentators, previous changes to the pension age were poorly communicated, and more recently the Government have been criticised for their work on sorting out the state pension underpayment crisis. I realise that the Minister is trying to address that. The public deserve reassurance on those issues.