Asked by: Zöe Franklin (Liberal Democrat - Guildford)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to safeguard members' benefits when a sponsoring employer seeks to extract pension scheme surpluses.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
Currently, some Defined Benefit schemes can already consider releasing their surplus under existing rules. The Pension Schemes Bill will provide more flexibility for trustees of these and other well-funded schemes to safely share some surplus with employers and members. This is underpinned with strict funding safeguards to ensure members’ pensions are protected.
Scheme trustees are required to act in the interest of scheme beneficiaries and will be responsible for agreeing to any decisions on surplus release. Schemes will also need to meet a minimum funding level and require actuarial certification before the release of any surplus. Further, our scheme funding regulations, overseen by the Pensions Regulator, require that trustees maintain a strong funding position so they can pay members’ future pensions when they fall due, including planning for future volatility.
Asked by: Zöe Franklin (Liberal Democrat - Guildford)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will bring forward legislative proposals to give pension scheme trustees the authority to award discretionary increases to those already claiming a pension.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
Discretionary indexation is over and above the statutory requirements. This discretion is usually exercised by the trustees with the agreement of the sponsoring employer. Some schemes have previously paid discretionary increases on a regular basis. However, these increases are not part of the pension package promised.
The precise design of pension benefits is a matter for employers and trustees and is not covered in the Department for Work and Pensions legislation. Pension scheme rules are many and varied and must remain a matter for employers and scheme trustees to decide.
The Pension Schemes Bill makes changes so that more trustees of well-funded schemes have the flexibility to share their scheme surplus with employers, subject to strict funding safeguards for members. Scheme trustees are required to act in the interest of scheme beneficiaries, and working with sponsoring employers, will be responsible for decisions on the release of surplus. Together they will agree how members can benefit from any release of surplus, which could include discretionary benefit increases.
The Pensions Regulator already expects that trustees be aware of members who would benefit from any decision to award a discretionary increase and whether the scheme has a history of making such awards.
Asked by: Zöe Franklin (Liberal Democrat - Guildford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the potential impact of changes to the employers' National Insurance Contributions on providers of adult social care.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department routinely conducts assessments of cost pressures for local authority funded adult social care, which include the costs associated with changes to employers’ National Insurance contributions.
To enable local authorities to deliver key services such as adult social care, the Government has made available up to £3.7 billion of additional funding for social care authorities in 2025/26. There is also an extra £502 million of support for local authorities in England to manage the impact of changes to employer National Insurance contributions, as announced at the Autumn Budget.
In addition, the Spending Review allows for an increase of over £4 billion of funding available for adult social care in 2028/29 compared to 2025/26.
Asked by: Zöe Franklin (Liberal Democrat - Guildford)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that timeframes imposed by the Child Maintenance Service are (a) proportionate and (b) matched by equivalent service standards within the Department.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
We have interpreted your question to refer to the timescales the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) uses in progressing cases.
The CMS inform customers of expected timeframes for actions to be completed when changes are reported or require progressing. Customers can use the Track Changes function on MCMC at any time to view the expected completion date of changes.
The timescales to progress cases varies depending on the type of case action being taken and information required to progress any change. When CMS require additional information to progress a case, the customer is advised of the timeframe for providing the information required.
The CMS has four official key performance indicators (KPIs) to ensure that the service acts on information and progresses cases in a timely manner once received from the customer. These KPIs include standard measures for 1) assessment accuracy, 2) application clearances, 3) change of circumstances clearances and 4) Collect and Pay compliance.
The CMS has exceeded the KPI indicators, demonstrating that it is meeting the standards set by the department. We are always working to modernise our service and how we communicate with our customers. We also work closely with the wider DWP colleagues to ensure measures and timescales are compared for consistency, where appropriate.
Asked by: Zöe Franklin (Liberal Democrat - Guildford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of allowing asylum seekers to work unrestricted by the Immigration Salary List after six months awaiting an asylum decision on (a) the economy and (b) community cohesion.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Home Office)
I refer the Hon Member to my answer of 4 June to Question 55328.