Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government when they plan to publish new rules on accessing surpluses in defined benefit pension schemes to allow companies to access £160 billion in corporate defined benefit schemes; and what assessment they have made of the potential effect the changes will have on UK growth.

We have set out that pension scheme trustees should have greater flexibilities to be able to release DB scheme surplus to benefit employers and members, where it is safe to do so. We will publish the Government’s response to the “Options for Defined Benefit Schemes” consultation in the coming weeks and this will set out the detail of the DB surplus policy. A full impact assessment will be published in due course.