Clause 68
Pensions Bill
9:30 am
Andrew Selous (Shadow Minister, Work & Pensions; South West Bedfordshire, Conservative)
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. My understanding is that personal account holders will not be forced to transfer into stakeholder schemes specifically, but the point is rather that these stakeholder schemes will be unable to refuse to accept these many small pension pots. Account holders can choose to take their personal accounts elsewhere, so they will have that choice.
What I am arguing for, in amendment No. 158, is giving stakeholder schemes the freedom to operate that any other pension provider would ordinarily have. Clause 68 really seems to be dumping obligations on stakeholder providers quite unfairly, and in a way that could be prejudicial to the existing members of those stakeholder schemes.
Amendment No. 158 would remove the obligation on stakeholder providers to accept transfer values and give them the discretionary freedom to determine whether or not it would be viable to accept certain low-value funds. They might very well decide that they are quite happy to accept these personal account transfers—they could be very keen to receive them—but, given that stakeholder pensions were legislated for and brought into being by this Government, we are concerned that the providers of these schemes should be treated fairly going forward. I know that we are talking about events that are some way off, but it is important to raise this issue now, and I look forward to hearing what the Minister will say about these issues.