Pensions - Articles - Delay on cold calling ban finally confirmed in Parliament

 Under the terms of the Financial Guidance and Claims Act 2018, the government was required either to bring forward its plans for a ban on cold calling by the end of June or explain why it had failed to do so during July. In a little-noticed written statement yesterday (shown below) the Economic Secretary to the Treasury said that because of the ‘complexity’ of the issue there will now be a further period of consultation on the draft regulations required to implement the ban. These would then be debated in Parliament in the Autumn but it seems unlikely that the ban would come into force until 2019 at the earliest.

 Royal London was the first major pension provider to back campaigners’ calls for a ban.

 Commenting on this further delay and on the timing of the statement, Steve Webb, Director of Policy at Royal London said: “The Treasury has chosen a good day to bury bad news. Whilst everyone’s eyes were focused on the Brexit white paper and the visit of the US president, they decided to admit officially that the cold-calling ban is going to be further delayed. Nobody doubts that if this issue was a real priority for the government a ban would already be in place right now. The repeated delays mean yet more innocent people will be scammed out of their life savings by crooks who ring them up out of the blue with persuasive offers and pressure sales techniques. It is understandable that the government is embarrassed by this delay, but now they need to pull out all the stops to get this legislation through and in force”.