Quality Workplace Pensions

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Thursday 27th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Steve Webb]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady. The principal change, although not the only one, is the introduction of the requirement for independent governance committees. With trust-based governance there are member-nominated trustees and a fiduciary duty on trustees, but with contract-based pension schemes provided by insurance companies there is a question, as has often been argued, of who is acting on the members’ behalf. The IGCs will have to be in place by April 2015 and they will have various duties. The way in which they are set up is described more fully in the document—I know she will not yet have had a chance to read it. I think that she will welcome the changes, which mean that whatever sort of pension scheme someone is in, there is somebody there looking out for them.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Residents of Kettering will welcome these measures to improve the quality of workplace pensions. The reason for automatic enrolment in the first place is that a lot of people are either frightened by pensions or do not understand them, or they might be young people who think that pensions are irrelevant. Under the quality scheme that the Minister has announced, may we have a stamp of quality on the documentation to reassure workplace employees? May we also have a common-sense, plain-English helpline that people can phone without any difficulty so that they can have the complexities of their pension arrangements explained? Can we also ensure maximum transparency of portability of pensions between workplaces?

[Steve Webb]

My hon. Friend raises a number of important points. On kitemarks and the like, we are placing a legal duty on firms to use for auto-enrolment only schemes of a requisite quality, so it will not be a matter of individual employees wondering whether their scheme is good enough—they will know it is good enough because their employer will not be allowed to enrol them into a scheme that is not so. All schemes will be of the requisite standard. He is right that people need places to go for advice in amongst the complexity. Our Department sponsors a body called the Pensions Advisory Service. I encourage all Members of the House to refer their constituents to TPAS, which is a free, expert and very good service. I must confess that I occasionally ring it myself.