Latest news with #PensionSchemes
Telegraph
05-07-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
People's savings are not working hard enough, so we will overhaul the pensions system
Tomorrow our new Pension Schemes Bill will have its second reading in the House of Commons. It will overhaul the pension system to ensure your savings work as hard as you worked to build them in the first place. Fundamentally it will prioritise higher rates of return for pension savers, putting more money into people's pockets in a host of different ways. For the first time we will require pension schemes to prove they are value for money, focusing their mindset on returns over costs and protecting savers from getting stuck in underperforming schemes for years on end. This plays a significant part of this Government's plan to grow the economy and put people in a better position during retirement as part of our Plan for Change. We are also at last addressing the small pension pots issue. Recently I was out door-knocking in Swansea. A women in her mid-30s told me something was really winding her up – the headache of trying to keep track of the small amounts of pensions savings she had from old jobs. There are now 13 million small pension pots floating around the UK pension system, each holding £1,000 or less. That number is increasing by around one million a year. That isn't just a hassle, it costs when savers can end up paying multiple flat fees on several pots. And it's costing the pension industry around £225 million each year administering them all. Our answer is to automatically bring an individual's small pots together into one pension scheme that's been certified as delivering good value for savers. And, of course, anyone that wants to can opt out. This change on its own could boost the pension pot of an average earner by around £1,000. Size doesn't always matter, but it does for pensions because bigger funds have lower costs and can invest in a wider range of assets. Both can drive up returns for savers. So we will also accelerate the consolidation of pension schemes into 'megafunds', with assets of at least £25 billion. Bigger funds will be better placed to invest in productive assets like infrastructure and housing, so this approach will also unlock more investment into the UK. Making your savings simple I appreciate younger readers in particular may not have thought in great detail about their pension plan. In fact, over three quarters of pre-retirement defined-contribution pension savers don't have a clear plan to access their retirement savings. And when it comes to retirement, too many of those reaching that point immediately draw down all their savings in one go. So, through our Bill, we will simplify things, requiring pension schemes to provide default retirement options – clear, secure routes for people to use their pension pot throughout retirement. People will still have the freedom to choose of course, but we want to support more people through complex choices that too often feel overwhelming, and where mistakes can cost thousands of pounds. Pensions sound techy, but this is about the basic job of government: helping to raise everyone's living standards. And at the end of the day, it's our pensions we live on in retirement. Even if that is a long way off for you, in fact especially if it is, these reforms will make a massive difference. After all, it's my job as the pensions minister to make sure that your pension savings work as hard for you as you did to earn them.
Daily Mail
05-06-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
'Bigger pension pots for Britons': Chancellor says reforms will boost economic growth - here's how
A new Pension Schemes Bill aimed at boosting individual people's pensions and economic growth is being launched by the Government today. The measures include a clampdown on schemes offering poor value for money to savers, creating 'mega' pension funds which can make better investment returns, and merging tiny pots. The Bill will also make pension schemes offer people reaching retirement age clear 'default' options to turn their fund into an income to live on in old age. The Government says millions of people planning retirement will find it easier to manage and get more from their pension pots as a result of its changes. And it will tackle schemes delivering poor returns for savers with a range of reforms, including a new system to show how well they are performing, and forcing them to merge if they are falling short. The Government recently announced that small pension pots worth £1,000 or less could be automatically moved into government-approved 'consolidator' schemes. Meanwhile, in its Mansion House Accord, 17 pension firms voluntarily pledged to put 10 per cent of the funds they manage for savers into UK-based unlisted private businesses and infrastructure projects by 2030. The Government has held off from forcing pension fund managers to invest more in the UK in the new Bill, but not taken this off the table for the future. The Bill also includes: - Creating multi-employer defined contribution pension 'megafunds' of at least £25 billion, so that 'bigger and better' schemes can drive down costs and invest in a wider range of assets. - Consolidating and professionalising the Local Government Pension Scheme, with assets merged into six 'pools' that can invest in infrastructure, housing and clean energy. - Allowing defined benefit (final salary) pension schemes to release surpluses totalling £160billion to support employers' investment plans and benefit scheme members. Chancellor Rachel Reeves says: 'The Bill is a game changer, delivering bigger pension pots for savers and driving £50billion of investment directly into the UK economy– putting more money into people's pockets through the Plan for Change.' Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall says: 'Hardworking people across the UK deserve their pensions to work as hard for them as they have worked to save, and our reforms will deliver a huge boost to future generations of pensioners. 'The Bill is about securing better value for savers' pensions and driving long-term investment in British businesses to boost economic growth in our country.' Former Pensions Minister Steve Webb, a partner at pension consultancy LCP, says: 'Whilst there are many worthy measures in the Bill, the biggest omission is action to get more money flowing into pensions. 'The Government's own projections show that more than 12 million people are not saving enough for retirement and yet the first major pensions legislation of the new Parliament does nothing to address this 'elephant in the room'.' Webb, who is This is Money's retirement columnist, adds: 'The very fact that the adequacy of pension saving is not going to be considered until the second phase of the government's pensions review shows that this issue is unfortunately on the back burner. 'Measures such as consolidating tiny pension pots are helpful tidying up measures, but do nothing to tackle the fundamental problem that millions of us simply do not have enough money set aside for our retirement. 'With every passing year that this issue goes unaddressed, time is running out for people already well through their working life to have the chance for a decent retirement.' Yvonne Braun, director of policy for long term savings at pension industry body the Association of British Insurers, says: 'This wide-ranging Bill is set to usher in the most large-scale pension reforms since auto-enrolment. 'The details will be crucial and we will scrutinise the Bill to ensure it puts the interests of savers first. 'We also urgently need to tackle the level of pension contributions which are too low to create an adequate retirement income for many. We urge government to set out the details of its adequacy review as soon as possible.'
