Pensions Minister and Poor Bereavement Service

Money Box

BBC

Business

4.2 • 804 Ratings

🗓️ 24 May 2025

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In an exclusive interview with this programme the Pensions Minister has talked about the government's plans to reform the UK's pension system. Torsten Bell has said that pension schemes should be moving more of members' money out of shares and into infrastructure projects where returns are higher. And he announced a new plan this week to bring millions of small pension pots together into one multibillion pound so-called 'consolidator scheme'. Hear that interview with Paul Lewis in full.

Banks, building societies, utility suppliers and pension providers "must do far better" when it comes to helping people deal with the finances of loved ones who've died. That's what the Chief Executive of Hospice UK, Toby Porter, has told this programme. We'll discuss best practice and what can be done to improve poor service.

And a government savings scheme designed to help people on low incomes is being extended and widened. How does Help to Save work?

Presenter: Paul Lewis Reporter: Dan Whitworth Researchers: Catherine Lund and Jo Krasner Editor: Jess Quayle

(This programme was first broadcast 12pm Saturday 26th April 2025)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, it's Lucy Worsley here and we're back with a brand new series of ladies swindlers.
0:07.5	Promise never to mention a word of what is going on.
0:10.1	Join me and my all-female team of detectives as we revisit the audacious crimes of women trying to make it in a world made for men.
0:19.5	This is a story of working class women trying to get by in a world made for men. This is a story of working-class women trying to get by.
0:24.4	This is survival.
0:25.3	Join me for the second season of Lady Swindlers, where true crime meets history with a twist.
0:31.4	Listen first on BBC Sounds.
0:36.4	BBC Sounds, music, Radio, Podcasts.
0:40.2	Hello, welcome to this Moneybox podcast.
0:43.2	Grief is the price we pay for love.
0:45.6	So why are relatives who are suffering from grief
0:48.1	met with such indifference by many financial firms?
0:51.9	Weeks and weeks and weeks of phone calls, of stress.
0:55.8	They need to be efficient, they need to be kind, and to be frank, they weren't either.
1:01.2	Banks have been told by their regulator to improve the way they deal with bereaved people.
1:05.9	And save a pound, get a 50-pence boost.
1:08.8	A government scheme which helps low-paid people save has been
1:12.0	extended to a half a million more. But first, in an exclusive interview with this program,
1:17.7	the pensions minister, Torsten Bell, tells me pension schemes should be moving more of
1:22.4	members' money out of shares and into infrastructure projects where he says returns a higher.
1:28.8	And to encourage that process, he announced a new plan, to bring millions of small pension
1:33.4	pots together into one multi-billion pound so-called consolidator scheme.
	...

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