Combined Pension Statement

HC Deb 12 November 2001 vol 374 c580W

Mr. Webb

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions when he intends to introduce the combined pension statement. [7575]

Mr. McCartney

The Department for Work and Pensions will offer a new service to enable people of working age to more effectively plan their retirement incomes through the provision of combined pension forecast statements.

This voluntary service, which is a joint initiative between the Department's pension providers and employers, is being implemented in the three main phases.

Phase 1 saw the development of the service through a series of pilot exercises conducted with the pensions industry. The pilots, which began in January 2000, are now coming to a conclusion.

Phase 2, which commenced on 18 October 2001, sees the formal recruitment and registration of pension providers to the service.

Phase 3 represents the physical production of the new statement by the industry. This phase will take the form of a rolling programme building to a service which will aim to provide 15 million combined statements by 2005–06.