Oral Answers to Questions

Seema Kennedy Excerpts

Monday 27th March 2017 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Seema Kennedy (South Ribble) (Con)]

1. What steps the Government are taking to ensure that people have accurate and clear information to inform decisions on the use of their pension investments.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Pensions (Richard Harrington)]

The Government are committed to providing free and impartial guidance through Pension Wise to help people make informed and confident decisions about how they use their defined contribution pension savings in retirement.

[Seema Kennedy]

I am grateful for that answer. Will my hon. Friend reassure me that the Government are taking steps to protect people from being scammed out of their savings as well as ensuring that people have access to information to help them to decide how to draw down their pension savings?

[Richard Harrington]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to ask that question. The Government take the threat posed by scams very seriously indeed. We run campaigns to highlight the risk posed by scams to savers, and we have established a cross-government taskforce to gather and share intelligence, and to co-ordinate enforcement action. We have also consulted on further measures to tackle scammers, including a proposal to ban cold calling in relation to pensions. Our next step will be announced very soon.