Pension Schemes Bill (Seventh sitting)

Rachel Blake Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 11th September 2025 Public Bill Committees

[John Milne]

We have tabled a number of amendments designed to improve people’s access to advice. As I said in a previous sitting, for me, the biggest missing link in this Bill is the absence of action on pensions advice. Relatively few people are able—or perhaps willing— to access paid advice, and that situation is not likely to change. We have to find another way.

The purpose of new clause 1 is to help people to properly understand their pension options through universal access to free, impartial advice at key life stages. We previously debated how that might be funded—slightly ahead of time—but this is purely about the principle of that advice.

Most people find pensions very complicated. It is hard to persuade people to engage with the issue at a young enough age, and it is even harder for someone to grasp what would constitute an adequate pension many years before they might have to draw on it. The Work and Pensions Committee, of which I am a member, has repeatedly highlighted this issue and examined ways to improve things.

The intention of new clause 1 is to ensure that everyone—not just the financially literate or well advised—can make informed decisions about retirement. Advice would be offered at or around age 40, which is a critical moment for mid-life planning and pension consolidation, and again within six years of expected retirement, to support decisions about drawdowns, annuities and retirement income options. That change is designed to give people confidence and clarity about their pensions, and to avoid poor decisions that would undermine retirement security.

[Rachel Blake (Cities of London and Westminster) (Lab/Co-op)]

I have read the new clause with interest, and listened carefully, and I am sure that this Committee is united in wanting there to be good advice on pensions. It would help me to better understand the proposal if the hon. Member could describe why he thinks the Money and Pensions Service is not already providing that, and why he thinks there is a gap that would justify this type of measure.

[John Milne]

I thank the hon. Member for her question. We have to look at performance: over the years, most people—the great majority of people—have not been getting any advice. Those who do tend to be better off because they have more private pensions, so they are obviously far more engaged, but the majority of people, especially now we have many on auto-enrolment, have minimal engagement. There are some very good services on hand—such as Pension Wise advice, which is free; I will come on to that in another measure—but, overall, people are simply not accessing that advice.

We are keeping the wording of the new clause reasonably open to establish the principle. There are many ways to solve the problem, and we will come to some of those in other new clauses. We are hoping to get agreement on the principle, though there are many ways to crack this particular egg.

Moving on to new clause 40, this is about targeted advice access for under-saving cohorts. Its purpose is to put the focus on groups of people who have historically been among the worst served by our current pension system.