The government believes that people should be free to make their own<\/p>
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choice about how to use their savings - individuals who have worked hard and saved responsibly throughout their adult life should have a choice about their pension savings and the reforms announced at Budget 2014 will deliver this.<\/p>
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The new tax framework, which will allow, from April 2015, individuals with a defined contribution pension to access their entire pension flexibly will apply equally across trust and contract based money purchase pension schemes. In the public sector, members of defined contribution schemes will also have access to these flexibilities, including members with savings in Additional Voluntary Contribution (AVC) arrangements.<\/p>
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The Government\u2019s assessment of the impact of the policy is set out in detail in the Budget costing note and the Tax Information and Impact Note, published alongside the Taxation of Pensions Bill.<\/p>
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The government wants to extend the principles of freedom and choice to as many pension savers as possible which is why, following an extensive public consultation, it was decided to permit transfers out of private sector and funded public sector defined benefit schemes to continue. Giving scheme members the choice to transfer their accrued benefits into a defined contribution scheme, in order to access their pension pot flexibly if they wish to.<\/p>
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To ensure due consideration is given to the interests of scheme members, scheme funds and the taxpayer in the continuation of these transfers for the public service schemes, government set out in the response to the consultation, Freedom and Choice in Pensions,<\/em> that it would look to implement, where appropriate, safeguards akin to those which already exist in the private sector. We are continuing to discuss these options and others, including with the Department for Local Government as the department responsible for the Local Government Pension Scheme, the largest of the funded public service pension schemes, and will set out further detail on this issue in due course.<\/p>"} , "answeringMember" : {"_about" : "http://data.parliament.uk/members/4262", "label" : {"_value" : "Biography information for Lord Deighton"} } , "answeringMemberPrinted" : {"_value" : "Lord Deighton"} , "dateOfAnswer" : {"_value" : "2014-10-29", "_datatype" : "dateTime"} , "groupedQuestionUIN" : [{"_value" : "HL2096"} , {"_value" : "HL2098"} , {"_value" : "HL2099"} ], "isMinisterialCorrection" : {"_value" : "false", "_datatype" : "boolean"} , "questionFirstAnswered" : [{"_value" : "2014-10-29T15:20:53.9247195Z", "_datatype" : "dateTime"} ]} , "answeringDeptId" : {"_value" : "14"} , "answeringDeptShortName" : {"_value" : "Treasury"} , "answeringDeptSortName" : {"_value" : "Treasury"} , "date" : {"_value" : "2014-10-14", "_datatype" : "dateTime"} , "hansardHeading" : {"_value" : "Public Sector: Workplace Pensions"} , "houseId" : {"_value" : "2"} , "legislature" : [{"_about" : "http://data.parliament.uk/terms/25277", "prefLabel" : {"_value" : "House of Lords"} } ], "questionText" : "To ask Her Majesty\u2019s Government whether they consider that delaying transfer payments and reducing transfer values are sufficient safeguards to stabilise public sector funded pension schemes threatened by large-scale withdrawals under the new Freedom and Choice for Pensioners arrangements.", "registeredInterest" : {"_value" : "false", "_datatype" : "boolean"} , "tablingMember" : {"_about" : "http://data.parliament.uk/members/2479", "label" : {"_value" : "Biography information for Lord Laird"} } , "tablingMemberPrinted" : [{"_value" : "Lord Laird"} ], "uin" : "HL2097"} ], "itemsPerPage" : 10, "page" : 0, "startIndex" : 1, "totalResults" : 1, "type" : ["http://purl.org/linked-data/api/vocab#ListEndpoint", "http://purl.org/linked-data/api/vocab#Page"]} }