Quality Workplace Pensions

Nigel Mills Excerpts

Thursday 27th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Steve Webb]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady and hope that I acknowledged in my statement the contribution her Committee has made to some of the measures. On transaction costs, from this time next year trustees and governance committees will have a legal duty to obtain information about all costs and charges; we will be working with the Financial Conduct Authority, staring immediately, to try to define them all. The shadow Minister came up with a list the other day, but there will be things missing from it. As soon as a phrase appears in an Act of Parliament, the industry will change the name of it. We must therefore ensure that we are as comprehensive as possible. We are certainly open to the possibility that that should go in a charge cap. We would not want to do that in a way that discourages transactions that are in the interests of members, but clearly we want to avoid gratuitous transactions intended only to generate charge income, rather than to further the interests of members. It is certainly something we will return to, particularly in the light of the transparent information that will become available for the first time because of these measures.

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

I welcome the charge cap, which shows how far we have come from the days of stakeholder pensions and the level of charging that was allowed. Will the Minister update the House on some of the other ideas for reform that are out there, such as defined ambition schemes and large aggregator schemes, which might also give savers a better deal?