Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps the Government is taking to help enable people with annuities to access liquidity from their products as a result of changes to their financial circumstances.

The government announced in October 2016 that it would not be continuing with proposals to remove the restrictions on the sale of existing annuities.

As these proposals progressed it became increasingly clear that the conditions required for a competitive market to emerge, with multiple buyers and sellers of annuities, could not be balanced with sufficient consumer protections.

This could have led to consumers receiving poor value for their annuity income streams and suffering higher costs in the sales process. Consumer protection is a top priority for the government and it would not have been acceptable to allow a market to develop which could produce poor outcomes for consumers.

There are no plans to review the decision not to continue with proposals for a secondary market in annuities at this time.