Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Steve Webb and Rehman Chishti

Monday 8th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Steve Webb]

When the Pensions Regulator notifies employers of their automatic enrolment duties, that letter flags the National Employment Savings Trust, which was designed with small businesses in particular in mind, but the regulator is considering putting more information on its website about other potential providers. I shall be hosting an event in the House for all Members to help them to support small businesses in their constituencies.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

T2. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Steve Webb and Rehman Chishti

Monday 23rd June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Steve Webb]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. We already hear anecdotal examples of people getting cold-calls that say, “This is your Government guidance offer.” We want to make it clear that that is not based on Government guidance, because that has not started yet. We are trying to make sure that instead of people making retirement choices with no information or advice, which often happens, they will have a right to go to a reputable provider and get information and guidance from someone who does not have a commercial interest in selling them something.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

State Pension Reform

Debate between Steve Webb and Rehman Chishti

Monday 14th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Steve Webb]

We have already given a guarantee that, having renegotiated the public sector pension schemes, we will make no further changes in rights under those schemes for 25 years. While we are changing the national insurance state pensions of public sector workers, we are not touching the public sector pension. Private sector workers may—indeed, probably will—find that their employer adjusts the private sector scheme in response, but, as I have said, even with that adjustment—even with the higher national insurance payment—the vast bulk of workers, certainly those within 20 to 25 years of pension age, will still be net beneficiaries.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

How will the new system affect those on low earnings?

[Steve Webb]

In the past, the state provided a flat basic pension and then an earnings-related second pension. By definition, low earners received low earnings-related pensions. What we propose is simply a flat pension, which means that low earners will, on average, tend to benefit.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Steve Webb and Rehman Chishti

Monday 23rd January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

13. What steps he is taking to protect the interests of people with small pension pots.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)]

The problems associated with small pension pots can include higher charges, losing track of a pension or facing barriers to moving the pension and getting a decent annuity. That is why we published a paper last month that sets out some radical options for some form of automated transfer system to make it easier for people to build up one large pension pot.

[Rehman Chishti]

Does the Minister have evidence on the number of small pension pots that will be created after automatic enrolment?

[Steve Webb]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. There is a risk that without action, in an auto-enrolment world hundreds of thousands of new small pension pots will be created each year as people change jobs. That is why it is doubly important that we should have some mechanism to combine those pots so that they are a pension worth having.

Social Security

Debate between Steve Webb and Rehman Chishti

Thursday 17th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Steve Webb]

People often miss one important point. The numbers on pensions in payment are in a sense straightforward, because we know the level of the state pension and the average pension in payment. To give the hon. Gentleman a flavour, the average occupational pension in payment is £70 a week, and the basic state pension is of the order of £100 a week. If we give an extra 2% on the £100 and take 0.8% off the £70, it is clear that people in that typical situation will be better off. Those are long-term changes, so there will be a big cumulative effect for someone who is 25. Of course, they do not see the boost to the state pension—they do not see that, in 40 years’ time, 40 years’ worth of earnings link will be embodied in their state pension. It is very hard to project that, which is why those people do not see it. Overall, I am confident that large numbers of pensioners will be net beneficiaries of the change.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

I am grateful to the Minister for clarifying the situation on SERPS. Will he confirm that the previous Government did not uprate SERPS in 2010?

[Steve Webb]

My hon. Friend is quite right. One of my first tasks as a Minister was quite strange. I had to write ministerial letters to say why we the Government—meaning my predecessors—had frozen people’s SERPS pensions, which was precisely because the RPI was negative, yet inflation was not.