On the go: An amendment to the pension schemes bill tabled by Lord Young of Cookham on Monday will force the Money and Pensions Service to provide a complete pensions dashboard for savers.
Previous iterations of the bill had said only that Maps “may” provide information about individual state pension entitlements and additional pensions, drawing criticism.
A similarly soft commitment was made in the bill towards regulatory responsibilities, including the compulsion of employers and pension schemes to provide information.
Conservative peer Lord Young, who resigned the government whip in 2019, has now amended the bill to change “may” to “must”, in a move that one industry expert said should force the creation of a more robust public pensions dashboard.
Gregg McClymont, the director of policy at The People’s Pension, said: “There was much criticism of the dashboard clauses during the bill’s Lords second reading, and it is notable that a senior government peer has now tabled an amendment to try and ensure that the pensions bill contains a watertight commitment to a publicly run single dashboard.
“This is very welcome and suggests that cross-party support is building to ensure that a commitment on the government to deliver a single dashboard is written into law. The public – as the government’s own research confirmed – is more likely to trust a non-commercial dashboard model.”
