Copy article

What do you think of the Government's Pension Schemes Bill plans?

Journalist: Jon King, Daily Express Online

ended 07. July 2025

The Government has announced today that working people on an average salary who save into a pension pot over their career could benefit by up to £29,000 by the time they retire thanks to major reforms to consolidate small pension pots, ensure schemes are value for money, and create larger pension schemes.

The announcement comes as the Pension Schemes Bill is back in Parliament for its second reading today.

The Government says the Bill will bring together small pension pots worth £1,000 or less into one pension scheme which is certified as delivering good value to savers, making pension saving “less hassle and more rewarding”. The Government says that presently many people struggle to keep track of multiple small pensions as they move jobs and can pay high fees as a result.

In future pension schemes will also need to prove they are value for money, helping savers understand whether their scheme is giving them good returns and protecting them from getting stuck in underperforming schemes for years on end.

The Daily Express is looking for strong views in 2 or 3 sentences on the merits or otherwise of the planned reforms. Can you see the plans benefiting workers? Are there any risks or downsides?

7 responses from the Newspage community

Copy all

Copy

Editor
Anita Wright
Chartered Financial Planner at Ribble Wealth Management
The term “good value” is vague and subjective. Good value for whom exactly, the Government, provider or saver? Labelling schemes as “certified” risks misleading consumers into thinking their savings are in their best interests by default. While consolidating small pots may ease admin, it doesn’t guarantee better value. Some legacy schemes offer low fees or favourable terms. Phrases like “less hassle and more rewarding” oversimplify pensions, ignoring the need for informed, long-term financial decisions. It implies that simplification is synonymous with improved outcomes, which is not always the case. Promising “good returns for years on end” is a fundamental fallacy, as past performance is no guarantee of future results. Value for money cannot be judged solely on historic returns, and framing it this way misleads savers into thinking future outcomes are predictable.
Copy

Editor
Scott Gallacher
Director at Rowley Turton
I’m sceptical about the headline £29,000 benefit. Simply consolidating a couple of small pension pots won’t create that kind of windfall. No doubt most of the savings come from lower charges, but that’s an area already capped in workplace pensions. It’s good news for workers, but perhaps bad news for some pension companies. The real issue is that too many people live for today and don’t save enough for retirement. I see people happily paying double for an Oasis concert—no doubt boosting Liam and Noel’s finances—but claiming they can’t afford to save into their pension. People need advice to help them make the right, sensible choices to balance enjoying life now with securing their future, rather than just boosting rock stars’ bank balances.
Copy

Editor
Samuel Mather-Holgate
Managing Director & IFA at Mather and Murray Financial
The pension industry needs a shake-up, but this is like trying to get the general public to listen to an entire Keir Starmer speech; no one’s getting excited about it. There are some small changes that should be welcomed, but this isn’t the drama needed to change a prehistoric industry. The devil's in the detail, and we’ll see what the take up is like, but pension inertia is likely to remain, even if switching is made easier.
Copy

Editor
Ross Lacey
Director & Independent Financial Adviser at Fairview Financial Management
This sounds like the government are saying cheap is good and everything else is poor value. There's so much more nuance than that. Cash is "free" so why not stick everything in cash if that's the case Everybody is different with regards to how their pensions should be structured, what investments will be appropriate and the optimal level of contributions to make. This will change throughout their lives too. In our experience there's very rarely people we speak to with multiple small pots less than £1000. £10,000 might have been a better threshold. This feels like a load of work for not a lot of benefit as a lot more needs to be done if the aim is to get more people having enough in their pensions for a decent retirement. We feel they should remove the annual allowance, reverse the decision to bring pensions into the IHT regime in 2027 and make it less cumbersome for people to get advice on their retirement by holding pension schemes accountable to delayed requests for information.
Copy

Editor
Rob Mansfield
Independent Financial Advisor at Rootes Wealth Management
Lost pensions are certainly a problem but £1,000 is a pretty low limit. How many people are going to have multiple pots under £1,000? For many, they're going to replace one pot with another pot and so there is no obvious benefit. Bigger isn't always better when it comes to these schemes and so it could reduce competition and embed some of those poorer performers. Is the Government really a good judge of value for money? This seems all about lower costs, which isn't the same as value for money. Own brand beans are cheaper than Heinz but which one do you pick up in the supermarket?
Copy

Premium
David Belle
Founder and Trader at Fink Money
Firstly, PensionBee already does exactly this. The government could for once be pro-business and simply make suggestions to people to use services such as PensionBee rather than trying to do it themselves, which I am sure will be an abject failure. With regards to getting value for money from their pension, what is the benchmark? Will people know what the benchmark is? Will they just benchmark to inflation? To a major index like the S&P500? How can they say the returns will be good when they do not know the risk profile of the customer or have an objective definition of benchmark? We need to stop politicians doing things. Genuinely. They’re clueless.
Copy

Colin Low
Managing Director at Kingsfleet
It’s quite true that reducing the administrative burden of pensions will help people to save. However, the best thing the Government could do is to stop ‘fiddling’ with rules on contribution allowances, tax relief, lifetime limits and tax-free cash limits.