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 on the Exchequer of the adequacy of the level of taxation on GPs pensions.

The Department continues to have a regular discussion with HM Treasury on a range of issues relating to the NHS Pension Scheme.

The NHS Pension Scheme provides generous retirement benefits for National Health Service staff. Members who reach the £1.073 million lifetime allowance for tax-free saving will have accrued an annual pension of approximately £46,000 per year and tax-free lump sum of £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 which the tapered annual allowance applies to were each raised by £90,000 from 6 April 2020. Therefore 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.