Work and pensions select committee chair and Labour MP Frank Field has written a letter to Pensions Minister Ros Altmann demanding more information on the pension freedoms.

Field, who was appointed as chair of the committee in June, has asked the Minister for more information on Pension Wise, in particular a more detailed breakdown of the use of the different services, and how this has met the Treasury’s expectations.

He also asked if the government will publish regular statistics regarding Pension Wise.

In addition, the letter asks the government to provide a response on the efficiency of the ‘second line of defence’ risk warnings delivered by providers and how this will be monitored and reported on.

It also asks what will be done to help customers assess the value of the pension products on offer to them and if the government has considered the merits of charge caps for retirement income products.

Furthermore, Field asks Altmann if the government monitors the extent to which retirement income product customers fall victim to scams and if scams have increased since the freedoms were introduced in April.

The topic of whether the government plans to improve the transparency of charges across retirement income products, in particular for drawdown products is also mentioned.

Finally, he asks if the government intend to consider the merits of encouraging providers to offer default decumulation options.

In the letter, Field mentioned how “disappointed” the committee was with the DWP’s failure to address recommendations made in a previous report submitted by the committee.

“The government has had over two months since the election to pull together a full response, and has failed miserably to do so. It seems similarly reluctant to come forward with information on the effectiveness, or otherwise, of the advice given by Pension Wise to people trying to get their heads round the new pension drawdown freedoms,” he said.


“We wrote to the work and pensions select committee earlier this month to answer their questions related to automatic enrolment. In this letter we also set out that we would give evidence to the committee’s inquiry into the impact of the pension freedoms," a government spokesman said.

“The regulators and our public consultation are designed to help highlight customer experience of the new pension freedoms. It is only a few weeks since the full freedoms started and we are watching developments carefully.”

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