Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has had recent discussions with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on reform of the tax rules related to GPs’ pensions.

The Department continues to have regular discussions with HM Treasury relating to the NHS Pension Scheme. The Scheme provides generous retirement benefits for National Health Service staff after a lifetime of service. Members who reach the £1.073 million lifetime allowance for tax-free saving will have built up an annual pension of approximately £46,000 per year and tax-free lump sum of approximately £139,000. This provides considerable financial security in retirement.

We are committed to ensuring that NHS staff do not find themselves reducing their work commitments due to the interaction between their pay, their pension and the relevant tax regime. The two thresholds above which the tapered annual allowance applies were each raised by £90,000 from 6 April 2020. This means that no-one with a threshold income below £200,000 is affected by the tapered annual allowance. An estimated 96% of general practitioners are now out of scope of the tapered annual allowance based on their NHS earnings.