Pension savers will no longer have to buy an annuity at retirement, George Osborne has revealed in the 2014 Budget. Britons will have more flexible access to their pension pots allowing them to ‘drawdown’ all of their savings in one lump sum at retirement.
The Chancellor said that savers should be trusted with their own hard earned cash, and said that “no one will have to buy an annuity” from April 2015.
Savers who wish to secure their retirement income will be free to buy an annuity, and those who wish to access their pension pot as one lump sum will also be allowed to do so. Savers will also be permitted to access part of their pension on retirement and leave the rest in their scheme to drawdown at a later date.
“The Government will introduce the most fundamental reform to the way people access their pensions in almost a century by abolishing the effective requirement to buy an annuity, giving people much greater freedom over how they access their pension savings,” reads the Budget report.
During their term in office the Government had already removed the necessity to buy an annuity by aged 75, and allowed pensioners who could prove a minimum income in retirement to access a lump sum of their pension pot.
Annuity rates took a battering during the recession, and fell to an all-time low in March 2013. Currently, those approaching retirement only get one opportunity to secure the rate at which they secure their retirement income, and falling gilt yields to which annuities are linked have had an adverse effect on rates.
Elissa Bayer, senior investment director at Investec Wealth & Investment said the radical change to the pension system would benefit the economy in the long run as more and more people drawdown money from their pension and spend.
Stephen Ford, head of Investment Management at Brewin Dolphin said that Osborne’s new pension policy was a “total game changer”.
“This will result in the almost immediate death of the annuity – for which we have long called for. It is a huge change in the flexibility of the pension system, with lower taxes and higher lump sums,” he said. “We welcome the fact that the government is willing to trust people with their own finances and await clarification on how the vast amount of necessary advice will be delivered.”