Select committee: Work and Pensions Committee
Recommendation 18
Third Report - Protecting pension savers – five years on from the pension freedoms: Saving for later life
Published 30 Sep 2022
Paragraph 123
Addressed to Department for Work and Pensions
Work and Pensions Committee Protecting pension savers – five years on from the pension freedoms: Saving for later life All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
MaPS Chief Executive, Caroline Siarkiewicz, told us that the biggest challenge was working out how to help people understand their options and choices, “bearing in mind the huge numbers of people who do not know where to go for that.” MoneyHelper Pensions guidance is an important service, able to help people engage with their pensions and support them with decision-making at important points such as divorce. MaPS has capacity to deliver 205,000 such pensions guidance sessions this year. It is not clear whether this is optimum or whether more people could benefit from the service if there was a concerted effort to increase take-up. We recommend that DWP and MaPS consider how the mechanisms available to increase take-up of Pension Wise—signposting requirements and a dedicated media and marketing budget—could be applied to MoneyHelper Pensions. MaPS should explain the role it expects its pensions guidance services to play in meeting its goal to have 5 million more people understanding enough to plan for and in later life by 2030. It should also explain how it plans to work with employers to ensure they play their part in meeting this goal.
From: Work and Pensions Committee, Third Report - Protecting pension savers – five years on from the pension freedoms: Saving for later life (HC 126), paragraph 123, 30 September 2022
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 23 January 2023 (deadline 30 November 2022).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government "notes" the Committee's report and responds to each recommendation in turn, committing to implement the 2017 Automatic Enrolment Review measures while declining several proposals.
- On the 2017 Review, it remains "committed to the implementation" of its ambitions "in the mid-2020s" and aims to bring forward legislation "at a suitable opportunity and when parliamentary time allows", with a consultation on implementation.
- It declines to consult on a plan for older savers without Defined Benefit pensions, saying "We do not believe now is the right time to consult", and does not support trialling automatic Pension Wise bookings.
- It states that "a new office is necessary" is not its view: the government "does not believe that a new office is necessary" to build the evidence base on retirement adequacy.
- On the gender pensions gap, it is developing a definition and says any target "could only be considered once a suitable definition has been agreed upon".