Work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith has suggested he will be lobbying the Treasury to give younger people some access to their pension.
While speaking to the work and pensions select committee, Mr Duncan Smith was asked about the Treasury’s consultation on the tax incentivisation of pensions.
He said: “A big driving force of the reforms has been to get pensions onto a more stable footing, to get more people saving and more people able to therefore benefit from a better income in retirement.
“One of the areas I have always been concerned about is how do you get young people to save more in the early years.”
He said that much of the problem was convincing young people why they needed to lock up some money for such a long time.
“One of the points I have made is to look at the possibility of saying there are ways you may be able to access that. These are things at which we want to look. There are other such systems in other countries to consider,” he added.
Adviser view
Tom Dean, a chartered financial planner with London-based Plutus Wealth Management, said: “I think giving people access to benefits that were intented for retirement would be unnecessary and potentially disastrous. I very rarely get objections on the grounds of access.”
