§ 24. Mr. FrenchTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many people currently contribute to(a) a final salary occupational pension scheme, (b) a money purchase occupational pension scheme and (c) a personal pension; and what is his estimate of the corresponding figures in five years' time.
§ Mr. HagueThe Government Actuary provisionally estimates that in 1991, 8.4 million people made personal contributions to final salary occupational pension schemes; and 0.7 million made personal contributions to money purchase occupational pension schemes. Figures on the number of people who are making additional voluntary contributions to occupational pensions schemes are not available.
In the financial year 1991–92, 2 million people made personal contributions to appropriate personal pensions in place of the state earnings-related pension scheme, and a further 3 million made contributions to other personal pensions.
The information on the corresponding position in five years time is not available.
Sources:
Occupational Pension Schemes: The Provisional Results of the 1991 Government Actuaries Department Survey of Occupational Pension Schemes.Personal Pensions: Inland Revenue, Statistics and Economics Office.
§ Mr. BoothTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what proportion of pensioners currently have an occupational pension; and how many had one in 1979.
§ Mr. HagueThe information requested is in the table.
Percentage of pensioners with income from occupational pensions 1979 1990–91 Pensioner couples 65 70 Single pensioners 32 56 All pensioner units 43 61 Source:
Family expenditure survey and GAD survey of occupational pension schemes.
Notes:
1. Pensioners units are defined as single people above state pension age and couples in which the husband is above state pension age.
2. 1990–91 denotes estimates from a combined sample of the 1990 and 1991 family expenditure surveys (FES). One quarter of the 1991 FES sample has been omitted because of inadequate data on community charge benefit receipt following the delayed issue of community charge bills in April 1991. As a result the sample size in that year is too small to provide reliable estimates of pensioners' incomes. For this reason the remaining data for 1991 have been combined with that for 1990.