Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will estimate the number of members of pension schemes who did not receive a tax-free lump sum on receipt of pension in the few months prior to the Financial Assistance Scheme (FAS) regulations adopted in April 2010, which allowed members who were not already in receipt of pension payments to give up some of their FAS assistance for a lump sum payment on transfer of the scheme to FAS.

The FAS may pay members of schemes which transfer their assets to government a tax-free lump sum when payments begin, provided their scheme has not paid them during the winding up period. In the three months from January to March 2010, 263 such members were paid a scheme pension and did not receive a tax-free lump sum.