Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department has undertaken international comparisons of pension value-for-money assessment frameworks.

DWP has explored international evidence, in particular undertaking comparisons with the Australian value for money (VFM) regime. The Pension Schemes Act 2026 Impact Assessment included evidence about annual performance tests in Australia’s superannuation system which are credited with increasing the net returns and decreasing the fees paid by millions of members.

Additionally, the UK VFM framework has, for example, been deliberately designed to avoid the investment herding behaviours that have emerged in Australia’s system, using learnings from the Department’s engagement with Australian officials to understand the challenges they faced. We continue to learn from the Australian experience of VFM in designing the UK VFM framework.