Pensions: Fraud
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to his Department's press release entitled Government crack down on pension scams, published on 9 June 2026, what estimate he has made of the total financial losses arising from pension scams in each of the last five years.
Answered by Torsten Bell
Pension scams can have devastating consequences for individuals, and the Government takes the threat of fraud extremely seriously. That is why we are working with regulators, law enforcement agencies and industry partners to combat pension scams, strengthening protections and ensure that savers benefit from robust safeguards to secure their retirement income.
Whilst it is difficult to quantify the scale of pensions fraud losses over a given period, due in part to the known time lag between the occurrence of a crime and its reporting, there is evidence that total reported losses arising from pension scams have fluctuated in recent years, peaking in 2022 at approximately £13.7 million. More recent data indicates that losses in 2025 were around £7.8 million. This may reflect the introduction of the Occupational and Personal Pension Schemes (Conditions for Transfers) Regulations 2021, which strengthened safeguards and may have enabled earlier intervention by trustees.
Our consultation, Protecting Pension Savers – Proposals to Amend the Occupational and Personal Pension Schemes (Conditions for Transfers) Regulations 2021, proposes targeted measures to tackle misuse of Small Self Administered Schemes (SSAS) and forms part of a broader programme of work to consider whether additional safeguards are needed across other areas of the pensions landscape.
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