§ Mr. Dellasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what information he has as to the number of employers with occupational pension schemes who allow employees an option as to whether they 239W will join; how many employees are covered by such options; how many of the 700,000 refusals to join listed on page 9, Table 3, of the Fourth Survey (1971) of Occupational Pension Schemes by the Government Actuary were exercising such an option; what was their age distribution; and how many such refusals were in relation to a scheme newly set up in respect of a refuser's employment or in relation to job changes or promotion where a scheme already existed.
§ Mr. DeanSome of the information requested is not available and the remainder would take a disproportionately long time to extract. But the position is thought to be broadly as follows. Virtually all the 700,000 refusals shown in Table 3 would result from employees exercising an option not to join a scheme. An option whether to join a pension scheme is usually given to existing employees when a new scheme is introduced; this apart, the rules sometimes provide for a continuing option.
§ Mr. Dellasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what further information he has as to the causes of exclusion from their firms' pension schemes of the estimated 100,000 excluded for "other reasons" according to the Fourth Survey (1971) by the Government Actuary of Occupational Pension Schemes, Table 3, page 9; how many were excluded for reasons of ill-health or disability; and whether he will state all "other reasons" that accounted for at least 5,000 exclusions.
§ Mr. DeanThe sample was not large enough to break down the information into categories as small as 5,000 but the great majority of those excluded for "other reasons" were because the scheme had been closed to new entrants. In a few cases exclusion was for health reasons.