Sheila Gilmore
Main Page: Sheila Gilmore (Labour - Edinburgh East)Department Debates - View all Sheila Gilmore's debates with the HM Treasury
Annuities for Pensioners
Sheila Gilmore Excerpts(10 years, 4 months ago)
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Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
I apologise for missing the initial part of the debate because I was in a Select Committee.
The market is not completely free. The Government have already intervened to say that people should be contributing to pensions. People do not have a choice or increasingly will not have a choice not to take part. The Government have a responsibility to the people they have placed in that position.
David Mowat
That is absolutely the point that I am making. It is not a free market, and it behoves Government to do more than they have done so far to get it right.
One approach is to try to make the market work better—that was the subject of some of the points that have been made already. The other way of dealing with it is more dramatic. I believe it is reasonable that the Government think very hard and seriously about providing products that would compete in the market with the industry guys, because, in any event, the principal thing that annuity providers do is match Government bonds. One reason why QE has been an issue is that the industry is buying Government bonds in order to match income and liability. It is a classic middleman thing. It is entirely reasonable for the Government—a Government of either complexion—to look long and hard at that suggestion. I believe that will happen, because we cannot continue with the market abuse that has occurred over the past two decades.