22 May 2006
Plans for a National Pension Savings Scheme are given strong
support by a committee of MPs.
The Treasury select committee has given its backing to Lord
Turner's plan for a National Pension Savings Scheme (NPSS) in a
report entitled The design of the National Pension Savings Scheme
and the role of financial services regulation.
The Treasury committee warned that any scheme should be simple
and cheap to run, and said that a number of issues must be tackled,
including ensuring that the NPSS was free of jargon.
Chairman John McFall said: "Pension plans should be tailored to
be inclusive of people in all walks of life, not exclusive to some.
They should be accessible, simple and straightforward."
Lord Turner's proposals that people should be enrolled
automatically if their employers do not already provide an
occupational pension scheme won support, as did calls for
compulsory employer contributions. The committee argued that
without these features, the NPSS would be no more effective than
the governmen''s previous initiative, the stakeholder pension.
