Tag: Lord Myners

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Myners on 2016-07-13.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have made an estimate of the cost of their monetary policy on the solvency of pension schemes, and whether they plan to use the profit made from quantitative easing to strengthen the financial position of the Pension Protection Fund.

Lord Freud

The UK’s monetary policy framework gives operational responsibility for monetary policy to the independent Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) at the Bank of England. Decisions on setting monetary policy are for the judgement of the Monetary Policy Committee.

The Government is sensitive to the fact that there will be those who gain and those who lose from any particular monetary policy decision. Such distributional effects typically balance out over the course of a policy cycle.

Over the last six years low interest rates have helped households and businesses through challenging economic times. Furthermore, as the Bank of England has explained in its article entitled "The distributional effects of asset purchases" published in its 2012 Q3 Quarterly Bulletin: "Without the Bank’s asset purchases, most people in the United Kingdom would have been worse off. Economic growth would have been lower. Unemployment would have been higher. Many more companies would have gone out of business. This would have had a significant detrimental impact on savers and pensioners along with every other group in our society."

The Pension Protection Fund is financially sustainable and there are no plans to further strengthen it. The PPF 2015/16 annual report said that the Fund has over £22 £23 billion assets under management and is 115 116.3 per cent funded.

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Myners on 2016-03-17.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they intend to monitor the role of institutional investors in voting their clients’ shares regarding the potential takeover of the London Stock Exchange, in order to ensure that this reflects the best interests of the clients rather than the fund manager or related parties.

Lord O’Neill of Gatley

The regulatory framework governing asset managers requires managers to take all reasonable steps to identify, prevent, manage and monitor conflicts of interest.

The Financial Conduct Authority are responsible for the supervision of firms to ensure consumers are protected and treated fairly.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Myners on 2016-04-19.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they will take to ensure that the liquidity ladder is not used to advantage counterparties of Euronext to the disadvantage of those of LCH Clearnet.

Lord O’Neill of Gatley

I refer the noble Lord to my written answers of 26 April (HL7583, HL7584, HL7585, and HL7586)

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Myners on 2016-04-26.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will publish an estimate of the likely impact of the additional levy that will be imposed on well managed and solvent pension schemes in relation to the BHS pension schemes.

Baroness Altmann

Parliament gave the Pensions Protection Fund independence in how it operates. The PPF sets the pension protection levy at the level it considers necessary to meet its long term funding strategy rather than in direct response to recent claims. Factors relevant to the level of the levy include: the PPF’s existing funding position (£3.6bn in reserves at March 2015); the potential level of future claims; the potential level of assets that may be received from transferred schemes; and expected future investment returns.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Myners on 2016-05-09.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of whether the presence in the UK of a counterparty clearing house is necessary to the success of the UK as an international financial centre, and whether the presence of such a clearing house is protected by the new settlement for the UK in the EU.

Lord O’Neill of Gatley

Central Counterparties (CCPs) play a central role in modern financial markets. As the Prime Minster has made clear, the UK’s new settlement with the EU ensures UK firms, including CCPs, will never face any discrimination for being outside the Eurozone.

I refer the noble Lord also to my written answer of 1 April (HL7153).

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Myners on 2016-07-12.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have any plans to change the discount rate used to calculate the funding status of defined benefit pension schemes.

Lord Freud

The legislation governing the funding of defined benefit occupational pensions schemes is designed to be flexible, allowing the trustees or managers of these schemes to determine which method and assumptions are to be used in their schemes technical provisions. A number of factors come into play in scheme funding decisions and the Pensions Regulator provides useful guidance for trustees in its codes and supporting guidance and statements.

In determining the discount rate to be used, trustees must act prudently taking into account the yield on assets held by the scheme and / or the market redemption yields on Government bonds or other high-quality bonds.

There is no standard actuarial method and set of assumptions that must be used, however, should the Regulator have concerns about a funding plan it can intervene.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Myners on 2016-03-22.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government why they set a five per cent exit charge for early closure of a lifetime ISA.

Lord O’Neill of Gatley

Whilst the Lifetime ISA is a product aimed at encouraging saving for the long term, the government understands that circumstances change so wants to ensure that people can access their own money if they need it whilst also keeping an incentive to leave funds invested for the long term or to help purchase a first home. The government proposes that savers can make withdrawals at any time for other purposes, but with the bonus element of the fund plus any interest or growth on it returned to the government, and a 5% charge applied.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Myners on 2016-04-19.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what estimate they have made of the extent of the reduction in the capital-to-risk ratio in central clearing consequent upon the takeover of the London Stock Exchange by Deutsche Bourse, and whether they propose to reduce the extent of credit offsets between the two central clearing parties.

Lord O’Neill of Gatley

I refer the noble Lord to my written answers of 26 April (HL7583, HL7584, HL7585, and HL7586)

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Myners on 2016-04-26.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will order an inquiry into actions taken by the trustees of the BHS pension schemes in agreeing revisions to funding rates and supporting the sale of the employer.

Baroness Altmann

The Pensions Regulator regulates work-based pension schemes, including trust-based schemes. In accordance with Parliament’s wishes, it has operational independence so it would be entirely inappropriate for Ministers to intervene in its decisions or on-going investigations.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Myners on 2016-05-23.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they support Turkey joining the EU, and what pre-conditions they believe should attach to such admission.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns

The Government supports the process of Turkey’s EU accession, which remains the most effective means of encouraging reform, stability and democracy in Turkey. But as the Prime Minister, my Rt Hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr Cameron), has made it clear that the question of Turkey actually joining the EU is ‘not remotely on the cards’, indeed that he does not believe it will happen ‘for decades’. Every Member State has a veto, at every stage of the process.

Turkey would need to undergo substantial reform before we could consider Turkish accession to the EU, particularly in terms of rule of law, freedom of speech, and socio-economic convergence with EU standards. Furthermore, the Government will not agree to any further EU enlargement without new arrangements for transitional controls on freedom of movement. We do not want to take the risk, as we did in 2004, of very large movements of people after a new accession. Under the European Union Act 2011, any new Accession Treaty would require parliamentary approval by primary legislation before it could be ratified.