Companies
should be given an extra six months to sign up to the Government’s stakeholder
pension scheme.
David
Willetts, the shadow secretary of state for work and pensions, warns in a
private briefing paper that unless ministers extend today’s deadline, as many
as 200,000 companies face a collective fine of £10bn for failing to meet the
target for registering with a provider of stakeholder pensions.
Companies
with five or more employees could be fined up to £50,000 if they have not
provided staff with access to a stakeholder pension by the deadline.
By
July, only 123,000 out of a total of 400,000 companies had signed up to a
stakeholder scheme by registering with a stakeholder specialist.
