National Employment Savings Trust
Steve Webb Excerpts(11 years, 8 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)
Later today the Government will publish the consultation document “The National Employment Savings Trust (NEST)—Proposals for amendments to the NEST Order”.
These proposed minor technical and consequential amendments will align the order with changes to automatic enrolment legislation. They will also provide clarity and certainty to NEST and the employers and members who use it.
The period of consultation will begin today and will end on 26 November 2012.
A draft amendment order is annexed to the consultation document, along with an initial assessment of the impacts.
I will place a copy of the consultation document in the Libraries of both Houses and it will be available later today on the Department’s website at: http://www.dwp. gov.uk/consultations/2012
Universal Credit and Welfare Reform
Steve Webb Excerpts(11 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr Byrne
Members on both sides of the House want this to work, but if the hon. Lady looks at the evidence submitted by the CBI and the Chartered Institute for Taxation to the Work and Pensions Committee on Friday, she will see that there is now a real worry that this is going to be a catastrophe for the many entrepreneurs who rely on tax credits for help to balance the books at the end of the month. What I want from the Secretary of State is clarity about how this is going to work in practice.
This is the start of a whole series of risks that have been brought to the attention of hon. Members here and in the Select Committee. Flagged up in the evidence submitted on Friday was the decision to deny people a choice about who receives the money. I hope that the Secretary of State will reform this before implementation of universal credit, because many people who run women’s refuges say that the system is so badly thought through that refuges for women fleeing from domestic violence will have to close. In fact, Refuge tells us—[Interruption.] This is not scaremongering by me; it is evidence submitted to the Select Committee by Refuge, which says that the idea is so badly thought through that unless changes are made, 297 refuges will have to close. This is not scaremongering; it is bringing to the House’s attention information and arguments provided by one of the most important charities in the country.
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)
Yesterday in oral questions, at which I think the right hon. Gentleman was present, the Secretary of State gave categorical assurances about refuges, so to repeat the smear after receiving those assurances is scaremongering.
Mr Byrne
If the Minister is accusing Refuge and Women’s Aid of a smear, I am afraid that he has got his facts seriously wrong. This element was not in the original design. Yesterday we finally extracted from the Secretary of State a commitment to change; now we want to know how it, along with a host of other things, will work in practice.
Some of these issues are now bedevilling local authorities. There is a serious risk that direct payments of universal credit, which includes housing benefit going to the individual, will result in local councils’ arrears bills and eviction rates beginning to rise. We are still no clearer about what will happen to the 20,000 housing benefit staff who work for local councils and will no longer have to process housing benefit claims once the DWP takes over the task. Are they going to be sacked or made redundant? Who will pick up the bill? Is it yet another bill that will fall on the shoulders of hard-pressed council tax payers?
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)
Almost 20 Members took part in the debate, and we are grateful to all of them. The high point was when my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) suggested that the contribution of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State had been so definitive that we should have a parliamentary procedure under which the debate simply ceases and applause follows.
We have heard some powerful contributions. I was particularly struck by what Members had to say about the attitudes to work that they had encountered and the experiences of some of their constituents, as well as about the barriers to work. My hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) mentioned a letter he received before being elected to the House from someone who said she was demoralised by the fact that it did not pay to work. My hon. Friend said he came to this House wanting to do something about that, and he can be proud to be a part of a coalition that is doing something about it. My hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Jane Ellison) mentioned the experience of a nurse who was heckled on her way to work for being stupid for going to work at all, because why would she bother? We have to end that situation. Although Opposition Front Benchers say they think work should always pay, they failed to deliver that when in office.
We must not lose sight of the big picture of this reform. We are bringing together separate strands into a single integrated system so that people do not have to go for their housing benefit to the council, for their jobseeker’s allowance to the DWP, and for their tax credits to HMRC. That will be good for tackling poverty, as it will lift many families and children out of poverty. It will also be good for tackling benefit take-up, because instead of having to claim several separate benefits, people will make a single claim. The suggestion that somehow the previous tax credits system was used as a model is absolutely extraordinary.
Someone said, “We all remember how terrible it was when people had their tax credits overpaid or under-claimed, or underpaid and claimed back.” That will come to an end because people will get the money when they need it. Under the real-time information, when their wage goes down, their tax credits—now their universal credit—will increase. They will not have to wait three years for a reassessment to claw back an underpayment; it will happen when they need the money. That is the way to tackle poverty.
Huw Irranca-Davies
The Government have justified their refusal to reveal the business case and, following an earlier intervention by my right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Dame Joan Ruddock), have declined to answer how many additional hours of work will be generated as a result of these changes. May I make things simpler? I ask the Minister: will these changes in the business case result in an increase in hours worked?
Steve Webb
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for bringing me to the issue of work incentives. It was central to this debate, so let me address the point directly. Two separate work incentives have been muddled together in this debate, including, I regret, by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field). The first is the incentive to take a job and the second is the incentive for those in work to work more hours. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, in introducing this debate, identified the fact that universal credit significantly improves the incentive to take a job. That is fundamental in order to move from a situation where, as we have heard, millions of people are in workless households where nobody is working. Of course the incentives for the second earner are important, but those for the first earner are even more important. We make no apology for prioritising them; we want far more households to have someone in work, which is why we have structured this as we have. We are therefore putting £2.5 billion extra per year, at a time when we are having to save on welfare, into in-work benefits, thereby improving the return to work. It must be the case that if we are spending more on in-work benefits, we are improving the incentive to work.
Mr Frank Field
Either the hon. Gentleman misrepresents me or I did not make myself clear. I said that, crudely, we are talking about three groups. The first is those who are unemployed and desperate to get back to work. The idea about incentives does not occur to them, as work is part of their DNA. We do not need to have reforms for them; we need jobs for them. The second group is those who regard their benefit as a pension, and no marginal increase in income is going to get them back to work. The third group is those in work who are deciding whether they will work longer, whether they will work harder and whether they will get new jobs. Will a scheme that puts their marginal tax rate up, as this one does for many people, actually be a work inducement?
Steve Webb
Let me deal with that point directly. Under the current system, people who are below the tax and national insurance threshold and get tax credits and housing benefit lose 79p in the pound—that will fall to 65p. Under the current system, people who are above the tax and NI threshold and get tax credits and housing benefit lose 91p in the pound—that will fall to 76p. Under the new system, there will be almost no one who loses more than 80p in the pound, compared with 500,000 people who do so now. What is not to like about that? This is good news for work incentives.
Stephen Timms
What is the Department’s assessment of the effect of the introduction of universal credit on the number of hours worked in the UK economy?
Steve Webb
As the right hon. Gentleman well understands, the impact on every individual will be different, so we have not used a specific figure for the number of hours worked. However, what I have demonstrated is that the people who face the biggest barriers to working more hours will see cuts in their marginal rates and the people who face the biggest barriers to working at all will get more return for working. So this is good news for work incentives. The right hon. Member for Birkenhead referred to the people facing an increase in their marginal rate, but that increase is by four percentage points, from a median of 41 to 45. That is the trade-off. We give people an incentive to take work and we tackle the most severe marginal rates, while some people face a four percentage point increase. That seems to me to be a good trade-off.
Quite properly, a lot of hon. Members raised the issue of internet access. We want to make it absolutely clear that the proposition is digital by default, so if we can get people in on the internet and online, we will do so. However, as the Secretary of State said at the start, we fully recognise that not everybody is online and not everybody will be, so the core planning for the universal credit contains provision for people who will not be online.
Some of the figures we have heard grossly distort the extent to which people of working age in the benefit population are online these days. The evidence suggests that 74% of claimants—not of the whole population, but of claimants—have home broadband and that 41% of claimants do internet banking. To hear the speeches we have heard in this debate, one would not think that these people even knew what a computer looked like. It has been suggested in this debate that we have to avoid patronising people on benefits, and that is absolutely right. We want to support people who are not online—jobcentres will play a part in that and we are talking to local authorities about it—but let us see this as an opportunity to get more people to be internet savvy, online and more employable. Let us not condemn people; let us give them opportunities and training.
The impact of this measure is very important, and the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) asked about the equalities impact. We will publish an updated equalities impact assessment with the final regulations after the autumn statement.
The hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Bain) gave some bizarre figures about the impact of this reform on lone parents, and I do not know where he got them from. Lone parents gain from universal credit: 400,000 lone parents who rent will gain, as opposed to 200,000 who will have lower entitlement; there will be twice as many gainers as losers in that category. This reform will reduce child poverty, because we are spending huge sums of additional money at a time when money is tight. We are doing so because of our priority of making work pay.
We have heard discussion of the real-time information system, the fact that people’s benefit will be based on their current situation and the impact on business. This approach has been assessed as saving businesses £300 million a year. Those figures are signed off not by us, but by the Regulatory Policy Committee, which is a business-led organisation; they have been validated by business. Businesses are doing a lot of these calculations anyway, with the software doing it for them in most cases, but the streamlining of the system will save businesses cost overall. We are working closely with our colleagues at Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs; there has been close working between the two Departments. The Department for Work and Pensions is represented in the governance of HMRC’s real-time information programme at every level, and the DWP and HMRC have jointly presented to Parliament.
The right hon. Member for Birkenhead, in another bizarre, overstated allegation, said that there has been a mass exodus of senior civil servants on the programme. That is completely untrue. The senior responsible officer, Terry Moran, whom he will know from years gone by, has held that role since November 2010. The programme director has been in place since August 2011. At HMRC, the senior responsible officer for the real-time information service has retired—we still allow people to retire, even under our policies—but has been replaced by someone from the DWP. So the suggestion that people are just walking out the door is nonsense and is scaremongering.
Steve Webb
I have got only two minutes, so I had better not give way.
We were asked about the position on domestic violence, an important issue raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood). It is an important issue in respect of provision for splitting payments, for example. The Government are absolutely committed to protecting those who are subject to domestic violence. For example, under universal credit, victims of domestic violence will be exempt from things such as work search requirements for a three-month period. Although shared payments would normally be appropriate, because we know that most households budget together, clearly we will make alternative arrangements in exceptional cases. We have therefore retained powers to split payments between members of a couple, for example, in cases of domestic violence. Details of those exemptions will be included in guidance.
We heard a large number of contributions and I cannot do justice to them all, but the key theme from Government Members has been a unified view that we must make work pay and that we should not listen to the naysayers. Frankly, it is always possible to get a newspaper headline by saying “Big Government IT project bound not to work”, because if it does work nobody will ever remember. That is always the way in which the Opposition conduct themselves, but we are in the business of making things happen. When my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State explained how closely he monitors the programme, he was not exaggerating. This project has probably had more hours of testing, evolution and making things work than any other with which I have been associated.
The hon. Member for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue) mentioned the 1988 benefit changes, which were a “big bang” change. Income support, supplementary benefit, family credit, the family income supplement and housing benefit were reformed all on a single day. This is a roll out over four to five years and we will get it right by doing it gradually, testing it, having pathfinders and bringing in groups one step at a time. We all saw what happened under the previous Government to the tax credit system when the changes were done in a “big bang”, but we will make this change gradually, get it right and make work pay, so we should reject the naysayers and reject the motion.
Question put.
The House proceeded to a Division.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
I ask the Serjeant at Arms to investigate the delay in the No Lobby.
Cold Weather Payments Scheme
Steve Webb Excerpts(11 years, 10 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)
I am pleased to announce that later today we intend to lay regulations to amend the cold weather payment scheme. The changes detailed in these regulations will come into force on 1 November this year, in time for the beginning of the winter period.
Following advice from the Meteorological Office the amendments will introduce one new weather station, Rostherne, to the scheme for winter 2012-13 and withdraw the current station at Woodford. As a result of the changes the postcodes that are currently linked to the withdrawn station will be reassigned to different weather stations.
The new station has been chosen to maintain weather station to postcode links that are at least as representative as the current arrangement.
I am writing to each Member who made representations about the administration of the scheme last winter to make them aware of the advice from the Meteorological Office.
Cold weather payments are separate from, and in addition to, winter fuel payments.
The amendments resulted from the Department’s annual review of the cold weather payments scheme. The review drew on expert advice from the Meteorological Office and took account of representations from benefit claimants and Members of Parliament.
For winter 2012-13 the cold weather payment rate will continue to be £25 for each seven day period of very cold weather.
Oral Answers to Questions
Steve Webb Excerpts(11 years, 10 months ago)
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Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
3. What discussions he has had with officials in his Department on the long-term financial benefits to the Government of up-rating frozen expatriate pensions.
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)
We estimate that the cost of uprating frozen pensions would be about £655 million a year. We believe that this is substantially in excess of any hypothetical savings arising from changed migration behaviour that might follow a change in policy on frozen pensions.
Stephen Phillips
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that answer. He will be aware of the Oxford Economics report published last year that suggested that the Government could make a net saving overall in relation to pensioners who wish to retire overseas but are incentivised not to do so by the frozen pension situation. He will also be aware of the grave injustice against British pensioners who have already retired overseas whose pensions have been frozen. Now that there appears to be an economic case for righting that historic wrong, will he undertake to reconsider the question so that those who retire overseas can enjoy the fruits of their work in this country?
Steve Webb
I have indeed read that report, which I think is flawed on a number of grounds. To give an example, it assumes that if we uprate pensions, far more people will emigrate, and it counts savings from health and social care that might not materialise for 15 to 20 years while counting the costs up front. Our colleagues in the Treasury are not so far seeking policies with large costs for the current comprehensive spending review period that will give savings in 2030.
David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)
4. If he will make it his policy that the National Employment Savings Trust should have greater freedom to compete in the market for occupational pensions.
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)
NEST has been designed to complement, rather than replace, existing good-quality pension provision by offering low charges and simple choices to a target group of earners and employers. The Work and Pensions Committee has suggested that the NEST constraints might not be working in the way that was intended, potentially resulting in consumer detriment. We think that the evidence is not unequivocal and so are gathering further evidence to determine how to proceed.
David Mowat
I thank the Minister for that answer. He will be aware that for the past two decades we have had the highest pension charges in the OECD. Part of the solution for the next two decades is NEST, yet there are a number of restrictions on its operating model that are really quite onerous, owing to an onerous interpretation of state aid rules. Will he undertake to look at that again before auto-enrolment comes in, which could save many hundreds of thousands of people a lot of money?
Steve Webb
It is important to stress that NEST is not an end in itself, but a means to an end, and the end is making sure that all employees under auto-enrolment have access to good-quality, low-cost pension provision, not necessarily through NEST, but because of the effect of NEST in the market. As things stand, in the early days of auto-enrolment, which starts in about 10 days’ time—I will therefore not change the rules right now—the early adopters of auto-enrolment are getting good-quality, low-cost pensions because there is huge competition, but we need to ensure that that remains the case.
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
Why does the Minister not stand up for lower-income savers, stand up to Brussels and make the case for setting NEST free now?
Steve Webb
We are, at the moment, continuing with Labour’s constraints on NEST, and the reason is that those constraints were designed to encourage NEST to focus on low-income savers. It has therefore innovated on, for example, products and on language and has been a good thing. If we think that NEST is unable to achieve the job it is there for, we will change the rules, but the early evidence does not support that.
Angie Bray (Ealing Central and Acton) (Con)
5. What recent steps he has taken to prevent benefit tourism.
Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)
14. What recent estimate he has made of the number of people in work not saving for a pension.
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)
Around half of all employees—around 13.5 million people—are currently not saving in a workplace pension. That is why we are pressing ahead with the introduction of automatic enrolment, to transform our long-term savings culture and support people in taking responsibility for their retirement.
Graham Evans
Can my hon. Friend confirm that our policy of auto-enrolment, which is due to start in October, will mean that between 6 million and 9 million more people will benefit in retirement?
Steve Webb
My hon. Friend is exactly right, and that indicates the scale of the policy. I often say that everyone will know someone who has been auto-enrolled. We are talking about a huge transformation, which is supported, I believe, in all parts of the House. It will be a revolution in pensions saving, and I look forward to the formal commencement just next month.
Mark Garnier
The Minister will no doubt agree that a good grounding in financial literacy encourages individuals to make proper decisions about providing for their futures, including with pensions. What discussions has he had with colleagues in the Department for Education about putting financial education in the curriculum?
Steve Webb
I agree with my hon. Friend that financial literacy and financial education are important. He will know that our colleagues in the Department for Education tend to take a light-touch approach to the curriculum, rather than wanting to be over-specific. However, there is a great deal that can be done in the existing curriculum. For example, compound interest is a pretty fundamental pensions topic and, in my view, ought to be in every maths lesson.
Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
A substantial number of those who are in pension schemes are saving well below the level needed to enjoy a comfortable existence in retirement. What are the Government doing to campaign for the better uptake of better schemes and encourage people to save earlier in their lives?
Steve Webb
The hon. Gentleman is quite right: around one in five of those who will be automatically enrolled are in their 20s, and if we can just get people starting earlier in pensions saving, that would be a good thing. Next week we are launching television advertising about automatic enrolment. The key is good quality workplace provision, automatic enrolment—which most people will stay in—and incentives from the Government. To give just one example, people on the universal credit will get additional help with their pension, because their pension contributions are allowed against their income for universal credit, so low-income households will get an extra boost if they save for a pension.
Gregg McClymont (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (Lab)
In all parts of the House there will be agreement about the importance of auto-enrolment. However, the hon. Member for Warrington South (David Mowat) has already raised the issue of high costs and charges. Does the Minister agree that in order to meet his coalition pledge to reinvigorate occupational pensions, there must be full disclosure of all pensions costs and charges to the saver, and that this is a prerequisite to ending rip-offs and reinvigorating occupational pensions in the United Kingdom?
Steve Webb
I think we have common cause across the House in wanting to see good value for money and transparency in charges. That is why I welcome recent initiatives—not just by the National Association of Pension Funds, but by the Association of British Insurers—to try to find ways of presenting such information simply and consistently. So far, under automatic enrolment competition is driving charges down, but we have the powers to cap charges and we will use them if we need to.
Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)
10. What proactive investigation work he has commissioned the Health and Safety Executive to undertake in relation to legionella.
Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
Jam jar accounts can help families’ budgets, protect housing associations and promote a savings culture. As credit unions can offer these at a much lower cost than existing commercial offers, will my hon. Friend do all he can to encourage them?
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on his tireless work in support of credit unions. As he knows, as part of the universal credit roll-out, we are piloting different sorts of budgeting accounts, including jam jar accounts, and we would be delighted if credit unions were to play a full part in that process.
Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)
T7. As we all know, the Atos work capability assessment is deeply flawed. How many people have died from their illness or disability since losing their disability benefits, and how many of them committed suicide?
Automatic Enrolment Thresholds (Annual Review)
Steve Webb Excerpts(11 years, 10 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)
I am pleased to announce that later today I will be publishing the Government’s consultation on the review and revision of earning thresholds for automatic enrolment 2013-14.
This is an annual exercise. The report sets out the context of this review, the evidence base and the proposed rates for 2013-14. We are seeking views both on the factors that should inform next year’s thresholds and the proposed rates. We would welcome responses in particular that tell us more about the tax relief method that schemes are currently using.
The consultation paper will be available later today on the Department’s website: http://dwp.gov.uk/consultations/ 2012/ and I will also place a copy in the House Library.
Workplace Pension Reform
Steve Webb Excerpts(12 years ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)
Later today I will be publishing the Command Paper “Government response to the consultation: Improving transfers and dealing with small pension pots, (Cm8402)”, along with an associated impact assessment.
From this month, the first savers will start to be automatically enrolled into workplace pension schemes. This will help many people to start saving, or save more into a pension. But bringing more people into pension saving will increase the numbers of small dormant pots, which are created as people move jobs.
Our updated figures, set out in the impact assessment, suggest that around 50 million dormant pots will be created by 2050 if no changes are made to the current transfers system. This could significantly undermine the Government’s commitment to encourage pension saving if people lose track of their pots, and so miss out on valuable retirement income
We need to reduce the number of small dormant pension pots in the system, making it easier for people to keep track of their savings. This will also reduce administrative burdens for providers, supporting low-cost pension provision. We issued a consultation document in December 2011 which set out ways to deal with a proliferation of small pots, ranging from small changes to the current system to encourage transfers, to automatic transfers of small pension pots. I am grateful to all those individuals and organisations who provided responses and participated in our workshops.
The overwhelming response to the consultation was that the small pots issue urgently needs to be resolved. The vast majority of our respondents agreed that an automated transfer system is the best way forward. Creating a system in which small pots follow people through employment is the preferred approach among savers, according to a recent survey by the Association of British Insurers. The Government’s analysis indicates that this option will achieve the most consolidation and generate the most administrative savings in the long run. We have outlined our preference for this approach in the Command Paper, ahead of essential work with all interested parties to firm up the policy and design an implementation strategy.
I will place a copy of the impact assessment in the House Library.
Sure Start Maternity Grants
Steve Webb Excerpts(12 years ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)
I am pleased to announce that later today we intend to lay regulations to extend entitlement to Sure Start maternity grants.
It is our intention that the scheme be extended to provide for payment of a Sure Start maternity grant where there is already a child under the age of 16 in the family, and there is a subsequent multiple birth.
This change recognises that even where there are already children in the family, additional items will be needed where there is a subsequent multiple birth and a Sure Start maternity grant will be provided for these requirements.
The further extension of these rules will be due to come into effect for multiple births expected on or after 29 October 2012.
Social Fund and Social Fund Commissioner (Annual Reports)
Steve Webb Excerpts(12 years ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)
The Secretary of State’s annual report on the social fund for 2011-12 is to be laid before Parliament and published later today.
The report records that total gross expenditure in 2011-12, excluding winter fuel payments, was over £940 million. This figure includes over 216,000 non-repayable community care grants and almost 3.2 million interest-free loans awarded worth over £581 million. Also, cold weather payments worth £129 million, funeral payments worth £46 million and Sure Start maternity grants worth £45 million, were paid.
In addition over 9 million households benefited from a winter fuel payment at an estimated cost of around £2.1 billion.
The Social Fund Commissioner’s report will also be published later today, and I will place a copy of this report in the House Library.
State Pensions Reform
Steve Webb Excerpts(12 years ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)
I should like to inform the House about the progress this coalition Government are making with their plans for state pensions reform.
At Budget 2012, the Chancellor confirmed that we will reform the state pension system to introduce a simpler, single tier state pension for future pensioners to better support saving for retirement. A simple flat-rate state pension above the basic level of the means test will bring much needed clarity and simplicity to the pension system, and provide the foundation needed to support automatic enrolment into workplace pensions, enabling people to save for their retirement with confidence. The reforms will be introduced in the next Parliament and will not cost any more than the current system overall.
The Budget also confirmed that the Government will introduce a mechanism so that future increases in state pension age take changes in longevity into account.
Together, these reforms will deliver a state pension system that is fit for the 21st century.
Given the scale, complexity and importance of these two significant reforms we are still working on the details, to ensure we get them right. Therefore, we will set out further detail on both the single tier reform and state pension age review mechanism in a White Paper in the autumn.
Workplace Pension Reform
Steve Webb Excerpts(12 years ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)
On 12 July 2012, we intend to publish the Government response to the consultation “Revised implementation proposals for workplace pension reform”, which began on 23 March and closed on 4 May 2012. I am grateful to all those who responded with views, thoughts or suggestions.
The response confirms the Government’s timetable for bringing small and micro employers into the workplace pension reforms in the next Parliament and this is reflected in the accompanying regulations.
The Government’s response to the consultation, the amendment regulations and an impact assessment will be available on the Department’s website in due course.
I will also place copies of the consultation and impact assessment in the House Library.