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1205030

	registered interest
	date	17/06/2020
	answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
	answering dept id	29
	answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
	answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
	hansard heading	Pensions
	house id	2
	legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
	question text	To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the Social Market Foundation's proposal in Investing in Britain's future: Financing and funding infrastructure after the Coronavirus crisis, published on 15 June, to create pension superfunds to invest in infrastructure and support economic recovery; and when they expect to report on progress made in pension fund consolidation, after consultation with relevant stakeholders.
	tabling member printed	Lord Myners
	uin	HL5871
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 08/07/2020 answer text <p>On 18 June, The Pensions Regulator published its interim regime for Defined Benefit pension superfunds, which is effective immediately. This is a significant step in progressing this policy area which has the potential to benefit employers, savers and wider society.</p><p> </p><p>The government recognises the potential large superfunds have to deploy significant capital in the investment markets that could benefit the wider economy. We expect superfunds will operate a well-diversified portfolio which may include investment in suitable infrastructure projects where the long term nature of returns are suited to long term pension liabilities.</p><p> </p><p>A written statement on this subject has now been published and a copy is attached.</p> answering member printed Baroness Stedman-Scott question first answered 08/07/2020 13:35:46 answering member 4174 label Biography information for Baroness Stedman-Scott attachment 1 file name House of Lords Written Statement.pdf title Pensions: Interim Guidance for “Superfunds”
	tabling member	3869 label Biography information for Lord Myners

1283744

	registered interest
	date	03/02/2021
	answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
	answering dept id	29
	answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
	answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
	hansard heading	Pensions
	house id	2
	legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
	question text	To ask Her Majesty's Government how many arrangements the Pensions Regulator has made with pension schemes with a deficit in excess of £50 million since 2005; with which schemes any such arrangements have been made; and for each such scheme, (1) how the deficit was met, and (2) whether there was any difference in the reported deficit and that which had to be met.
	tabling member printed	Lord Mendelsohn
	uin	HL12969
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 11/02/2021 answer text <p>The information requested on arrangements made by the Pensions Regulator is either not available, or could only be provided at disproportionate cost.</p> answering member printed Baroness Stedman-Scott grouped question UIN HL12970 HL12971 question first answered 11/02/2021 12:22:04 answering member 4174 label Biography information for Baroness Stedman-Scott
	tabling member	4286 label Biography information for Lord Mendelsohn

1283745

	registered interest
	date	03/02/2021
	answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
	answering dept id	29
	answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
	answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
	hansard heading	Pensions
	house id	2
	legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
	question text	To ask Her Majesty's Government how many arrangements the Pensions Regulator has made with pension schemes with a deficit in excess of £25 million but less than £50 million since 2005; with which schemes any such arrangements have been made; and for each such scheme, (1) how the deficit was met, and (2) whether there was any difference in the reported deficit and that which had to be met.
	tabling member printed	Lord Mendelsohn
	uin	HL12970
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 11/02/2021 answer text <p>The information requested on arrangements made by the Pensions Regulator is either not available, or could only be provided at disproportionate cost.</p> answering member printed Baroness Stedman-Scott grouped question UIN HL12969 HL12971 question first answered 11/02/2021 12:22:04 answering member 4174 label Biography information for Baroness Stedman-Scott
	tabling member	4286 label Biography information for Lord Mendelsohn

1283746

	registered interest
	date	03/02/2021
	answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
	answering dept id	29
	answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
	answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
	hansard heading	Pensions
	house id	2
	legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
	question text	To ask Her Majesty's Government how many arrangements the Pensions Regulator has made with pension schemes with a deficit in excess of £10 million but less than £25 million since 2005; with which schemes any such arrangements have been made; and for each such scheme, (1) how the deficit was met, and (2) whether there was any difference in the reported deficit and that which had to be met.
	tabling member printed	Lord Mendelsohn
	uin	HL12971
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 11/02/2021 answer text <p>The information requested on arrangements made by the Pensions Regulator is either not available, or could only be provided at disproportionate cost.</p> answering member printed Baroness Stedman-Scott grouped question UIN HL12969 HL12970 question first answered 11/02/2021 12:22:04 answering member 4174 label Biography information for Baroness Stedman-Scott
	tabling member	4286 label Biography information for Lord Mendelsohn

1464841

	registered interest
	date	23/05/2022
	answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
	answering dept id	29
	answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
	answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
	hansard heading	Pensions
	house id	2
	legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
	question text	To ask Her Majesty's Government what data is (1) collected, and (2) published, relating to trust-based pension (a) Defined Contribution schemes, or (b) MasterTrust schemes, in any year since 2015, to show how many people have accessed their pension funds; and whether they purchased an (i) annuity, (ii) income drawdown, (iii) uncrystallised pension fund lump sum, or (iv) withdrew funds in full.
	tabling member printed	Baroness Altmann
	uin	HL393
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 07/06/2022 answer text <p>Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) publish data on their website, based on what is reported to them, on the number of flexible payments made from pensions, the number of individuals who have received these flexible payments and the total value of all flexible payments. As this includes all flexible pension payments, the data represents a proportion of payments made from trust-based Defined Contribution (DC) schemes as well as contract-based schemes. As of December 2021, 1.9 million individuals have taken 16.0 million flexible payments from their DC pensions since the introduction of Pension Freedoms in 2015.</p><p> </p><p>The Pensions Regulator (TPR) publishes data on their website from trust-based DC schemes on an annual basis. This publication provides a high-level snapshot of the current landscape of occupational DC trust-based pension provision in the UK, including information on the number, memberships, and assets of schemes. The most recent publication is TPR’s 12<sup>th</sup> edition, DC Trust: scheme return data 2021 to 2022, which includes data captured since 2015.</p><p> </p><p>Included in this, they report the number of members for whom each scheme is directly providing (self-annuitisation) or facilitating (lifetime annuities) annuity payments. At the end of 2021, there were 1,000 memberships receiving lifetime annuities, excluding hybrid schemes (which have a mixture of guarantees and investments), and less than 1000 memberships receiving self-annuitisations, also excluding hybrid schemes. Number of memberships, or number of pension pots, does not equate to number of individuals, as many people are members of more than one pension scheme.</p><p> </p><p>The data in this publication from TPR does not capture all pensioner members, as some members will have retired but transferred out of their scheme.</p><p> </p><p>Members who transfer out of a trust-based DC scheme and access their pension savings via a contract-based provider will be included in the data collected by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and published in their Retirement Income Market Data. However, data is not currently collected on volumes of members that transfer out of trust-based DC schemes with the intention of accessing their savings. The FCA data shows that from October 2015- March 2021, over 3.3 million DC pots have been accessed in the contract-based market. This data is presented in Table 1 and can be found on the FCA webpage: Retirement income market data 2020/21. This data is also provided broken down by year in Annex A.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><table><tbody><tr><td colspan="3"><p><strong>Table 1: Volumes and proportion of retirement income products, October 2015- March 2021 (FCA Retirement Income Data)</strong></p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Product</p></td><td><p>Total volume</p></td><td><p>Proportion of all pots accessed</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Annuities purchased in period</p></td><td><p>390,697</p></td><td><p>12%</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>New drawdown policies entered and not fully withdrawn in period</p></td><td><p>993,033</p></td><td><p>30%</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Pots where first partial UFPLS payment taken and not fully withdrawn in period</p></td><td><p>130,247</p></td><td><p>4%</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Full cash withdrawals from pots being accessed for first time in period</p></td><td><p>1,831,982</p></td><td><p>55%</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Total pots accessed for the first time</p></td><td><p>3,345,960</p></td><td><p>100%</p></td></tr></tbody></table><p> </p><p>*Volumes prior to April 2018 were drawn from a representative sample of firms. The FCA started collecting data from all regulated firms providing retirement income products from 1 April 2018.</p> answering member printed Baroness Stedman-Scott question first answered 07/06/2022 15:37:59 answering member 4174 label Biography information for Baroness Stedman-Scott
	tabling member	4533 label Biography information for Baroness Altmann

1538931

	registered interest
	date	02/11/2022
	answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
	answering dept id	29
	answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
	answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
	hansard heading	Pensions
	house id	2
	legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
	question text	To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact on UK pension funds of the fall of the Hang Seng Index.
	tabling member printed	Lord Alton of Liverpool
	uin	HL3135
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 16/11/2022 answer text <p>UK pension schemes investment in Asian markets, and therefore exposure to the fall of the Hang Seng index, is low. Overall, our UK Pension schemes operate over very long timescales and have balanced and diversified investment strategies. They are therefore well placed to navigate any periods of volatility in global markets.</p> answering member printed Baroness Stedman-Scott question first answered 16/11/2022 14:13:16 answering member 4174 label Biography information for Baroness Stedman-Scott
	tabling member	738 label Biography information for Lord Alton of Liverpool

1125019

	registered interest
	date	07/05/2019
	answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
	answering dept id	29
	answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
	answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
	hansard heading	Pensions
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether he has plans to introduce the Pensions Bill before summer 2019.
	tabling member constituency	Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough
	tabling member printed	Gill Furniss
	uin	251381
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 14/05/2019 answer text <p>This Government has recently published responses to a series of consultations, and have engaged extensively with key stakeholders and the Pensions Regulator.</p><p> </p><p>In these we have committed to strengthen the Pensions Regulator’s powers to both enforce pension’s legislation and to punish those who have acted recklessly or failed to comply with their obligations. We have committed to facilitate industry to make pensions dashboards a reality. We are also compelling pension schemes to make consumers data available to them and to facilitate collective defined contribution schemes.</p><p> </p><p>The Government will bring forward legislation to introduce these measures as soon as parliamentary time permits.</p> answering member constituency Hexham answering member printed Guy Opperman question first answered 14/05/2019 15:14:40 answering member 4142 label Biography information for Guy Opperman previous answer version 117711 answering member constituency Hexham answering member printed Guy Opperman answering member 4142 label Biography information for Guy Opperman
	tabling member	4571 label Biography information for Gill Furniss

1129830

	registered interest
	date	04/06/2019
	answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
	answering dept id	29
	answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
	answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
	hansard heading	Pensions
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent discussions she has had with representatives from the pensions industry about (a) the divestment of pensions funds from carbon-intensive industries and from fossil fuels and (b) incorporating climate-related risk into their investment decision-making.
	tabling member constituency	Bristol East
	tabling member printed	Kerry McCarthy
	uin	259913
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 13/06/2019 answer text <p>The Government wants to support trustees in making responsible investment decisions. However, it does not seek to direct pension schemes to invest or divest in any particular way.</p><p> </p><p>We recognise that climate change is a key national and international issue and we have made sure that pension schemes understand their role responding to its effects. In September 2018, following extensive consultation with the pensions industry, this Government laid regulations to clarify that trustees should be taking account of the financial risks of climate change when developing their investment strategies. The regulations come into force from October this year. The FCA are consulting on corresponding provisions for workplace personal pension schemes.</p><p>As the Minister for Pensions and Financial Inclusion I have spoken extensively about the new requirements and the Government expectations of pension schemes, including during the Westminster Hall debate regarding Pension Funds: Financial and Ethical Investments on the 22 May 2019:</p><p> </p><p>“For too long there has been a perception by too many trustees -I am happy to clarify this as a Government Minister- that the environmental practices of the firms they invest in are purely ethical concerns, which they do not need to worry about: that is utterly wrong. Aside from the ethical considerations, there are real financial risks resulting from climate change. With the long-term horizons of pension investing, trustees must now consider that when they set out their investment strategies. Trustees who do not consider those matters will be breaching their statutory and potentially their fiduciary duties not only to current but future members.”</p><p> </p><p>The full debate can be viewed here:</p><p><a href="https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2019-05-22/debates/D3194408-7581-4635-AEDC-6D22AD6F0EBC/PensionFundsFinancialAndEthicalInvestments" target="_blank">https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2019-05-22/debates/D3194408-7581-4635-AEDC-6D22AD6F0EBC/PensionFundsFinancialAndEthicalInvestments</a></p><p> </p> answering member constituency Hexham answering member printed Guy Opperman grouped question UIN 259914 question first answered 13/06/2019 11:32:49 answering member 4142 label Biography information for Guy Opperman
	tabling member	1491 label Biography information for Kerry McCarthy

1129831

	registered interest
	date	04/06/2019
	answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
	answering dept id	29
	answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
	answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
	hansard heading	Pensions
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps the Government is taking to encourage the pension industry to (a) divest pension funds from carbon-intensive industries and fossil fuel and (b) adopt the recommendations of the task force on climate-related financial disclosures on reporting structures.
	tabling member constituency	Bristol East
	tabling member printed	Kerry McCarthy
	uin	259914
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 13/06/2019 answer text <p>The Government wants to support trustees in making responsible investment decisions. However, it does not seek to direct pension schemes to invest or divest in any particular way.</p><p> </p><p>We recognise that climate change is a key national and international issue and we have made sure that pension schemes understand their role responding to its effects. In September 2018, following extensive consultation with the pensions industry, this Government laid regulations to clarify that trustees should be taking account of the financial risks of climate change when developing their investment strategies. The regulations come into force from October this year. The FCA are consulting on corresponding provisions for workplace personal pension schemes.</p><p>As the Minister for Pensions and Financial Inclusion I have spoken extensively about the new requirements and the Government expectations of pension schemes, including during the Westminster Hall debate regarding Pension Funds: Financial and Ethical Investments on the 22 May 2019:</p><p> </p><p>“For too long there has been a perception by too many trustees -I am happy to clarify this as a Government Minister- that the environmental practices of the firms they invest in are purely ethical concerns, which they do not need to worry about: that is utterly wrong. Aside from the ethical considerations, there are real financial risks resulting from climate change. With the long-term horizons of pension investing, trustees must now consider that when they set out their investment strategies. Trustees who do not consider those matters will be breaching their statutory and potentially their fiduciary duties not only to current but future members.”</p><p> </p><p>The full debate can be viewed here:</p><p><a href="https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2019-05-22/debates/D3194408-7581-4635-AEDC-6D22AD6F0EBC/PensionFundsFinancialAndEthicalInvestments" target="_blank">https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2019-05-22/debates/D3194408-7581-4635-AEDC-6D22AD6F0EBC/PensionFundsFinancialAndEthicalInvestments</a></p><p> </p> answering member constituency Hexham answering member printed Guy Opperman grouped question UIN 259913 question first answered 13/06/2019 11:32:49 answering member 4142 label Biography information for Guy Opperman
	tabling member	1491 label Biography information for Kerry McCarthy

1129833

	registered interest
	date	04/06/2019
	answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
	answering dept id	29
	answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
	answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
	hansard heading	Pensions
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government on encouraging local government pensions funds to divest from carbon-intensive industries and fossil fuels.
	tabling member constituency	Bristol East
	tabling member printed	Kerry McCarthy
	uin	259915
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 13/06/2019 answer text <p>The DWP has regular discussions with the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government. However, much like with trustees of occupational pension schemes, the local pension committees of the individual Local Government Pension Funds are responsible for their own investment decisions.</p><p> </p><p>As I said during the Westminster Hall debate regarding Pension Funds: Financial and Ethical Investments on the 22 May 2019:</p><p> </p><p>“For too long there has been a perception by too many trustees -I am happy to clarify this as a Government Minister- that the environmental practices of the firms they invest in are purely ethical concerns, which they do not need to worry about: that is utterly wrong. Aside from the ethical considerations, there are real financial risks resulting from climate change. With the long-term horizons of pension investing, trustees must now consider that when they set out their investment strategies. Trustees who do not consider those matters will be breaching their statutory and potentially their fiduciary duties not only to current but future members.”</p><p> </p><p>The full debate can be viewed here:</p><p><a href="https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2019-05-22/debates/D3194408-7581-4635-AEDC-6D22AD6F0EBC/PensionFundsFinancialAndEthicalInvestments" target="_blank">https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2019-05-22/debates/D3194408-7581-4635-AEDC-6D22AD6F0EBC/PensionFundsFinancialAndEthicalInvestments</a></p> answering member constituency Hexham answering member printed Guy Opperman question first answered 13/06/2019 11:07:47 answering member 4142 label Biography information for Guy Opperman
	tabling member	1491 label Biography information for Kerry McCarthy