HC Deb 12 May 2003 vol 405 cc96-8W
Vera Baird

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions whether he will review the introduction of a compulsory employer contribution to stakeholder pensions as part of the pensions green paper consultation. [110860]

Maria Eagle

There is no proposal in the Green Paper Simplicity, security and choice: Working and saving for retirement, (Cm 5677), to introduce compulsory employer contributions to stakeholder pensions. However, the Government is keen to encourage employers to make pension contributions. As we pointed out in the Green Paper, employer contributions are a major factor in encouraging take up of stakeholder pensions by employees. The generous tax relief available on employers pension contributions supports this.

The Government believe that the long-standing voluntarist pension system in this country, based on a partnership with employees, employers, pension providers and government all working together, is the way forward. The Green Paper put forward radical proposals to simplify the tax rules, provide better information about pension choices, help people to work for longer and provide more protection for employees whilst simplifying administration for those who run pension schemes. These proposals will renew the pensions partnership and make the voluntarist system work better.

The Green Paper also announced the setting up of a pensions commission, chaired by Adair Turner, to provide an independent check on the progress of the voluntarist pension system and to make recommendations to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions on whether there is a case for moving beyond the current voluntarist approach.

Mr. Gardiner

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions where his Department has conducted research to assess the benefits of targeting pensions advice at workers that have recently entered new permanent positions. [111436]

Maria Eagle

The Green Paper Simplicity, security and choice: working and saving for retirement, recognised the vital part that the workplace plays in pension provision and set out the Governments proposals for working with employers to encourage and facilitate the provision of better pensions information to employees and prospective employees.

To date no research has been conducted by my Department to assess the benefits of targeting pensions advice at employees that have recently entered new permanent posts. However, we are now concluding a wide-ranging consultation exercise in which we have sought views on the Green Paper proposals. We have received more than 800 written responses and we will be setting out our plans, including any plans for research in this area, in more detail in due course.

Mr. Willetts

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many submissions received during the online consultation on the pensions Green Paper were edited or amended before being made public. [110902]

Maria Eagle

20 messages were edited before publication.11 appeared as edited because the title of the message was changed so that it did not mislead people into thinking that replies to the message from the Minister were from the Minister. 5 edits were made to remove web links where the content of the website that was linked to was potentially libellous, and to remove names of individuals or companies that could also have been potentially unfair. 4 were edited as they asked specific questions on their own pensions situation and there was concern about other participants giving them misleading advice. Those participants were given details of how to contact the relevant department for their concern.

Mr. Willetts

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many submissions were received during the online consultation on the pensions Green Paper; and how many submissions are not to be made public (a) because the author specifically asked for their comments to be kept private and (b) for other reasons. [110903]

Maria Eagle

A total of 186 messages were posted to the four forums.

The online consultation was independently pre-moderated by the Hansard Society to ensure that comments posted through the discussion were appropriate and lawful.

No comments were withheld from publication due to the request of the author.

16 contributions were not made public, as they breached the rules published on the website. Of those, four were repeat postings—where people had posted the same message in all of the forums; and 12 were not published as they were off-topic.