Contribution
My Lords, it is a pleasure to speak to the Committee about pensions dashboards.
I am conscious that this has been quite a long journey in terms of trying to get the pensions dashboard in the Pension Schemes Act 2021 initiated. I am aware that, at the time, the House of Lords was keen that there should not be a private dashboard, but the House of Commons gave its strong view. As a consequence, the Bill went through without specifying that DWP and MaPS had to produce a public sector pension dashboard first because we were concerned—I am still concerned—that the longer people do not know what is going on with their pensions, the shorter the time they may have to make informed choices or, at least, to consider and understand what their pension and retirement will look like in future. That is why I have tabled this amendment.
Two things come out of that. One is that, in essence, what is required is for the Financial Conduct Authority to sort out all the different bits in order to allow private sector pension dashboards to get the necessary data and to be allowed to start operating. Indeed, Pensions Dashboards Regulations that were passed a couple of years ago were amended to remove the dashboard’s available point.
Let me go on a slight journey; I do not intend to delay the Committee for very long, but I am really concerned about progress. I am aware of the reset that happened and the issues around what triggered it, which I do not think are public, but we are nevertheless in a situation where we should be making more progress than we are. It is notable that, in a Written Ministerial Statement in October 2024, the then Pensions Minister, Emma Reynolds, changed the Government’s policy from what had been the case; in effect, it had been neutral on what was happening around trying to get these dashboards going. She put in place a policy, which is still live in government today, saying that we must make sure that the DWP/MaPs dashboard comes out first and is well tested, and then we will start. We are still committed to doing the private sector-run dashboards but not to any particular date.
I am grateful to the Minister for putting on a recent briefing and to the chief executive of MaPS and the team coming to do that, but I have to say that I was somewhat alarmed that it still feels as if we are a long way off. I appreciate the connection deadline has not changed. It was great in a recent parliamentary Answer to see the progress of data provided, but it started to get me concerned about exactly the issues I considered several years ago: that once we get into MaPS and DWP starting to decide what are the best ways to do some of this communication and what user testing works well, they end up missing out on the opportunity of what the private sector does every day in terms of clear communication. That does not mean to say we are looking for a cowboy scheme—far from it as there is still the Financial Conduct Authority—but that we make more rapid progress than is happening now.
I know some of the pensions schemes people are happy to no longer have the six months. I know from the latest update from the programme board as part of the advisory group in December 2025 that despite acknowledging that the Government were clear that there would not be a private sector dashboard allowed anywhere near to the launch date of the public sector dashboard its number one issue was trying to make sure that that was available as quickly as possible.
I am conscious of things that seem to go awry. There had been amber ratings for a while, then, all of a sudden, there was a red rating on the pensions dashboard. Nevertheless, we are still making slow progress, and I feel that we should open this opportunity to make sure we have pension dashboards available as quickly as possible. With the best will in the world, MaPS is not moving quickly enough. I do not believe we will have a MaPS/DWP dashboard until some time in 2027.
The original intention when MaPS took this over— in 2023 I think—was that the connections would be completed by then. I fully understand the history on that. This is the opportunity to get on with this. We have spent a lot of time in this Bill saying we want to make sure people have better returns and better understanding of what is happening with their money in different ways. For me, the dashboards are a key part of that, and at the moment, it feels that while the Government have not deliberately decided to go slowly, we are going slowly as a consequence of their policy choices. It is vital that members of pension schemes know their situation so they can make the necessary choices.
I am sure the Government recognise that they did not communicate all the way back in 2005 and then were found to have caused maladministration in terms of the WASPI women as a consequence. We are not getting into a debate on compensation or something like that, but it is important we let people know as soon as possible, and that is why I have tabled this amendment today. I beg to move.