Royston Smith – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Royston Smith on 2016-05-25.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department has taken to allow pensioners to draw down all funds within any public pension schemes that existed before 2016-17.

Justin Tomlinson

Members of funded public sector defined benefit pension schemes can take advantage of the pension freedoms by transferring their pension savings to a private defined contribution pension scheme before cashing in their pension. Members of unfunded public sector defined benefit schemes cannot transfer to access the pension freedoms. In unfunded defined benefit public service pension schemes, there is no fund of assets with which to finance transfer payments. Instead, they are funded from contributions and through general expenditure.