Consultations & legislation
Call for evidence on early access to pension savings
13 December 2010
Open date: 13 December 2010
Closing date: 25 February 2011
Updated: 19 April 2011
Call for evidence
In the Coalition Agreement the Government pledged to explore the potential to give people greater flexibility in accessing part of their private pension fund early. This reflects the Government’s commitment to considering ways to boost individual saving, and foster a culture of personal responsibility, particularly in encouraging saving for retirement.
The Government subsequently published a call for evidence on early access to pension savings in December 2010, which closed on 25 February 2011.
The call for evidence set out the existing arguments that suggest early access to pension savings could provide an effective incentive for individuals to start saving or save more into a pension, and also outlined some of the different models for how early access could potentially be offered.
The Government asked for representations and evidence on the possible benefits and risks of any early access reform and also on whether current pensions tax rules could be made more flexible for individuals with small pension pots.
- Call for evidence on early access to pension savings (PDF 349KB)
- Press notice: Call for evidence on early access to pension savings
The summary of responses
Over 100 responses were received following the call to evidence, with more than 60 from organisations, including major pension providers and schemes, consumer bodies, think tanks and other financial service providers, and nearly 50 individual responses.
A summary of the views and evidence received, alongside the Government's response, has now been published, and is available below.
- Early access to pension savings: A summary of responses to the call for evidence (PDF 206KB)
- Press notice: Government publishes response to the call of evidence on early access to pension savings
All documents on this page are available in Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF). If you do not have Adobe Acrobat installed on your computer you can download the software free of charge from the Adobe website. For alternative ways to read PDF documents and further information on website accessibility visit the HM Treasury accessibility page.
Share
