Written Evidence to be reported to the House
Pensions Bill
6:15 pm
Nigel Stanley: We strongly agree with that. It seems to us that too much is made of the dangers of putting in lump sum investments. I have an AVC that goes alongside my—I am one of the lucky ones—DB scheme. No one said that I should take advice before I put extra money into my AVC, and I think that there should be the ability to put extra money, within reasonable limits, into lump sum payments—particularly the kind of lump sum payments from the target group, which would not be enough to interest a commercial pensions company. The odd £5,000 here does not make much sense to invest in a personal pension pot with an insurance company, but it might make quite a big difference to someone who suddenly comes into that amount and wants to do the responsible thing with it, which is to put it into their pension. Simply adding it to their personal account is a straightforward and simple thing to do. One suspects that if they cannot do that, they might not put it into their pension at all, and might spend it in some other way, which would not suit public policy quite so well.