:
"We outline how it will revolutionise the UK pensions landscape –
building a safer, better and greener system. These landmark
proposals - from dashboards, scam protection, improved
governance, to delivering sustainable investment - offer a once
in a generation opportunity to usher in changes that will benefit
this country for decades to come.
Behind the scenes, we’ve worked tirelessly to introduce measures
that will advance the Government’s goal of ensuring that savers
are provided with the necessary support and tools they need to
make informed choices about their financial futures.
Key to this is the introduction of pension dashboards –which
brings pensions into the digital age by giving people clear
information about all of their pensions in one place for the
first time.
Everyone deserves to enjoy the retirement they have spent their
working lives planning towards. That is why we have outlined
provisions to protect against callous scams intended to rob
savers of their hard-earned retirement savings.
The Bill will also introduce a legislative framework for
collective defined contribution schemes, or CDCs, a new type of
pension scheme which spreads the investment risk allowing for
greater returns to members and improves schemes’ sustainability
for employers.
In addition, we’re consulting on whether to mandate for pension
schemes to adopt and report against the recommendations of the
Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD).
This will ensure occupational pension schemes take climate change
into account as both a risk and an opportunity, and compel
trustees to disclose how they have done so to their members, and
the public.
Recent Government amendments to the Bill take this further. They
add a requirement for schemes to take the Government’s net zero
targets into account, as well as the Paris Agreement goals of
limiting the rise of average global temperatures, for the
purposes of managing their own climate risk.
Coupled with our ongoing work on “illiquid” investments, these
climate measures will enable us to mitigate against the dangers
of climate change while also grasping the opportunities available
as we transition to net-zero.
Finally, the Bill will extend the Pensions Regulator’s sanctions
regime - introducing the power to issue civil penalties of up to
£1 million and three new criminal offences, including a new
sentence of up to seven years in prison for bosses who run
pension schemes into the ground or plunder them to line their own
pockets.
The powers enacted by the Bill are wide-ranging and will tangibly
improve our pension system by making it safer, better and
greener. I welcome the opportunity today to discuss them with my
fellow MPs."
