Clause 13 - Duty of employers to facilitate access to personal pension schemes
Rights of Savers Bill
Public Bill Committees, 14 December 2005, 3:30 pm
Malcolm Rifkind (Shadow Secretary of State for Work & Pensions & Welfare Reform, Work & Pensions & Welfare Reform; Kensington & Chelsea, Conservative)
The clause is in part 3, which is the final substantive part of the Bill. It is intended to address the worrying trend of pension proliferation, whereby many savers have large numbers of often very small private pensions. That situation is caused by changes of circumstances, such as new jobs or, in the case of women, career breaks. It is important to deal with that. Stakeholder pensions have made some progress in that sphere, but only by allowing transfers to other stakeholder pensions. The clause places an obligation on those employers who have to designate a stakeholder pension to offer payroll deduction for contributions into any stakeholder or other personal pension scheme, and it is intended that that should also apply to savings and retirement accounts. I commend the clause to the Committee.