Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what information his Department holds on the number of people receiving benefits due to expending their personal pension in the most recent period for which information is available.

The information requested is not available.

Under the pension freedoms people with defined contribution pensions are able to draw capital or an income from their pensions from 55 years of age. If they do so, this will be taken into account in the assessment of their benefits entitlement. There are safeguards in place to deter people from deliberately spending their pension income in order to gain benefits.