15 July 2010
At the Association of British Insurers (ABI) conference,
Pensions Minister Steve Webb said he was considering allowing
people "early access" to their private pensions if they were in
dire financial need.
A typical dire financial need could be if a family was facing
eviction from their home after falling behind in their mortgage
payments.
Mr Webb said: "At the moment we have a situation when people
have huge amounts of money in some cases tied up in pensions. They
have short-term issues with their finances, and then can't bring
the two together to their long term detriment, and that is
something we need to look at."
Mr Webb went on to say that he was looking at whether he can
make pensions more flexible so they don't always have to be an all
or nothing option and whether some of the issues around early
access can be addressed.
