Debates — Pensions Act 2007

Committee stage in the Lords

11 Jun 2007134 speechesView in Hansard ↗

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord McKenzie of Luton)My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now again resolve itself into Committee on this Bill. Moved accordingly, and,…
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord McKenzie of Luton)Labour
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My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now again resolve itself into Committee on this Bill. Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to. House in Committee accordingly. [The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (Lord Tordoff) in the Chair.] Schedule 6 [The Personal Accounts Delivery Authority]:
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Baroness Noakesmoved Amendment No. 89:
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Baroness NoakesConservative
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moved Amendment No. 89:
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Baroness Morgan of DrefelinI thank the noble Baroness for her thoughtful and helpful contribution, which has allowed this short debate to take pla…
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Baroness Morgan of DrefelinLabour
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I thank the noble Baroness for her thoughtful and helpful contribution, which has allowed this short debate to take place. I hope that I can assure noble Lords that we consider the role of the chairman and non-executive members to be crucial to the effective operating of the authority. Not only will they bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to the authority, but they will also, in carrying out the non-executive functions, provide an important independent role. The Secretary of State will be looking for candidates of the highest calibre when making these public appointments. That will include ensuring that a non-executive does not have a conflict of interest that is, “likely to affect prejudicially the discharge by him of his functions as a member of the Authority”. That is made clear in paragraph 2 of Schedule 6. Sub-paragraphs (6) and (7) define a conflict of interest and state the parameters that the Secretary of State must use in deciding on the suitability of non-executive members. Amendment No. 89 proposes that the Secretary of State must consider a direct or indirect conflict of interest when appointing the chairman or another non-executive. The inclusion of “direct or indirect” in the criteria that the Secretary of State should consider does not add anything. As I have explained, the definition of conflict of interest is to be found at sub-paragraphs (6) and (7) and it includes direct and indirect conflicts of interest. Paragraph 2 already provides sufficient assurance that the non-executive members will be free from a conflict of interest. I therefore do not want to include that additional requirement. Amendment No. 91 proposes that the delivery authority should notify the Secretary of State of any declaration made under paragraph 13. That paragraph relates to disqualification for acting in certain matters—in particular, at meetings of the authority, the chairman or other non-executives, or any committee or sub-committee. Paragraph 13 already provides assurance that, in carrying out its work, the authority and any of its committees or sub-committees should follow appropriate procedures in terms of transparency and accountability. That measure is especially pertinent when considering the work of committees. As the Bill makes clear, the authority can invite people who are not members or employees to sit on a committee. It will be for the delegated authority to decide how it uses that ability and whom it might like to invite, but it is likely that persons may include, for example, individuals who work for organisations representative of consumers, employers or the pensions industry. In the same way as noble Lords declare interests before speaking in the House, it is right that persons invited to sit on committees of the authority should also declare any direct or indirect interest in a matter that is being considered. Such a declaration by noble Lords does not devalue their contribution; so it will be in committees of the authority. It is of course right that any such declaration is recorded appropriately. The Bill makes provision for any declaration to be recorded in the minutes of the meeting. To require the authority to inform the Secretary of State every time such a declaration is made seems an overly bureaucratic measure, although I understand why the noble Baroness raises the questions in debate here for clarification. The provisions in the Bill enabling the Secretary of State to request necessary information from candidates or post-holders when assessing whether non-executives have a conflict of interest are an appropriate requirement that provides sufficient safeguards. I understand the point that the noble Baroness makes regarding the difference between declaring an interest and there being a conflict of interest. I imagine that procedures would be routinely in hand to ensure that conflicts of interest are recorded and handled in a transparent and appropriate way. Having provided that information, I hope that the noble Baroness will consider withdrawing her amendment.
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Baroness NoakesI thank the Minister for her reply, although, I must say, it did not address the points that I made. She gave me a less…
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Baroness NoakesConservative
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I thank the Minister for her reply, although, I must say, it did not address the points that I made. She gave me a lesson in why we need declarations of interest. I never challenged that. That was not my point. I was merely saying that, if there were declarations of interest that related to the chairman and the non-executive directors, the Secretary of State should be informed. The noble Baroness said that she imagined that they would be recorded and dealt with appropriately. My goodness me. If I was going to be satisfied, I should have expected a more definitive statement from the Minister about how she expects the procedures to operate in practice. I come back to the main point behind my lead amendment. Under Amendment No. 89, I was talking about whether someone had a conflict of interest, which, in paragraph 6, means a financial or other interest likely to be prejudicial to the discharge of his functions. I was trying to make the point that the individual does not have an interest in the business of a spouse. He has an interest only in the relationship and, as it is only the business that can give rise to a conflict of interest, I was trying to suggest that the drafting does not meet what the Government are trying to do. I should emphasise that the amendments were entirely intended to be helpful to the Government. I have not heard anything today that shows that the Government have understood what I was trying to do. I do not know whether the Minister can add to that or whether we should just leave this for another day
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Baroness Morgan of DrefelinTo reflect a moment on what the noble Baroness said, I did not say that I imagined that conflicts of interest would be…
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Baroness Morgan of DrefelinLabour
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To reflect a moment on what the noble Baroness said, I did not say that I imagined that conflicts of interest would be recorded—if I did, that was not my intention.
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Baroness NoakesThe noble Baroness will find that she said “imagine”.
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Baroness NoakesConservative
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The noble Baroness will find that she said “imagine”.
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Baroness Morgan of DrefelinMy intention was to be clear that conflicts of interest will be recorded. Where members of committees declare a conflic…
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Baroness Morgan of DrefelinLabour
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My intention was to be clear that conflicts of interest will be recorded. Where members of committees declare a conflict of interests, that will be recorded in the minutes of that committee. I am very happy to reflect on the comments of the noble Baroness. It is essential that issues of conflict of interest are discussed and made clear for the record and I am happy to think further and discuss the matter again with her if that is appropriate.
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Baroness NoakesI thank the Minister and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. [Amendments Nos. 90 to…
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Baroness NoakesConservative
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I thank the Minister and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. [Amendments Nos. 90 to 93A not moved.]
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Baroness Noakesmoved Amendment No. 94:
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Baroness NoakesConservative
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moved Amendment No. 94:
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Lord McKenzie of LutonI hope that I can be equally brief. In all cases involved with public appointments, we or, later, the delivery authorit…
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Lord McKenzie of LutonLabour
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I hope that I can be equally brief. In all cases involved with public appointments, we or, later, the delivery authority will follow the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments code of practice. Although the code does not specify the length of individual terms, it clearly sets out that appointments will normally be restricted to two terms and that the total service on the same board should not exceed 10 years. Our plans for the initial appointments to the delivery authority are for a three-year term, with the option to reappoint members at the end of that term, subject to satisfactory performance. It will be for the delivery authority, subject to Secretary of State approval, to determine the terms and conditions of subsequent non-executive appointments. If noble Lords have seen the recent advertisements for the initial appointments to the authority, they will have noted that they are subject to the Bill receiving Royal Assent. Should the Bill not receive parliamentary approval, those appointments could and would be terminated. To clarify, Clause 21 sets out in primary legislation the requirement that we must have regard to all guidance. The guidance that we shall follow in this respect is that of the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments code of practice.
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Baroness NoakesI am more than happy with that and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
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Baroness NoakesConservative
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I am more than happy with that and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
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Baroness Noakesmoved Amendment No. 95:
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Baroness NoakesConservative
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moved Amendment No. 95:
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Lord McKenzie of LutonI thank the noble Baroness for moving the amendment. When I read the original wording and then the amendment, I warmed…
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Lord McKenzie of LutonLabour
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I thank the noble Baroness for moving the amendment. When I read the original wording and then the amendment, I warmed to “misconduct” rather than “misbehaviour”—in the drafting sense, I hasten to add. Being unfit for office by reason of misconduct is already covered in paragraph 3(5)(g), but I agree that the phrase, “has been guilty of misbehaviour”, is a little odd. An unnamed official did say that “misbehaviour” sounded rather good fun, or could encompass that. I will take this away and reconsider it.
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Baroness NoakesI thank the Minister. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
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Baroness NoakesConservative
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I thank the Minister. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
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Baroness Noakesmoved Amendment No. 96:
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Baroness NoakesConservative
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moved Amendment No. 96:
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Lord McKenzie of LutonAgain, I thank the noble Baroness for making a series of intriguing points. As she may already be aware, the Cabinet Of…
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Lord McKenzie of LutonLabour
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Again, I thank the noble Baroness for making a series of intriguing points. As she may already be aware, the Cabinet Office guidance states that most public appointments are not pensionable. We therefore do not think that we have got this right, and will reconsider the wording. That will cover the other points that the noble Baroness has made. That is two in a row; I would not encourage her to think that this is a precedent.
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Baroness NoakesI am on a roll. For now, however, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. [Amendments No…
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Baroness NoakesConservative
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I am on a roll. For now, however, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. [Amendments Nos. 97 to 102 not moved.]
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Baroness Noakesmoved Amendment No. 103:
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Baroness NoakesConservative
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moved Amendment No. 103:
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Lord McKenzie of LutonThe amendments focus on the authority’s ability to form committees and the important related issues of good governance…
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Lord McKenzie of LutonLabour
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The amendments focus on the authority’s ability to form committees and the important related issues of good governance and accountability. In making provision for the authority to set up committees, the authority will have the flexibility, where the board thinks it useful, not only to draw on the expertise and skills from within the authority but to harness external expertise. In the course of its business, the delivery authority is likely to want to bring in external expertise to examine proposals on a specific topic. The Bill provides the authority with the ability to meet its challenges as it thinks best, including by setting up a committee that includes external members if that appears to be the most appropriate method. In these circumstances, it is right that the authority can use the committee structure to ensure accountability and control. However, to impose the requirement that the majority of committee members must be authority members or employees, as Amendment No. 103 would do, or to impose the same requirement when delegating to a committee, as Amendment No. 105 would do, could undermine the authority’s ability to conduct its business most efficiently and effectively. Although I fully accept the need for some delivery authority representation on any committee, the legislation already provides for at least one member of a committee to be either a member or an employee of the authority, or both. I hope noble Lords will agree that the Bill contains adequate checks and balances to ensure that decisions remain the responsibility of the authority, and that the authority remains fully accountable. It is important to bear in mind that we are dealing with the delivery authority in its initial phase, the advisory phase. We will, as a matter of course, review the practical provisions in the Bill to ensure that they are fit for purpose for the next stage—delivery of the personal accounts. For those reasons, what the Bill proposes for the advisory phase is appropriate.
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Baroness NoakesI accept that the question of the delivery authority may give rise to slightly different issues. Nevertheless, it will…
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Baroness NoakesConservative
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I accept that the question of the delivery authority may give rise to slightly different issues. Nevertheless, it will be preparing for implementation as well as simply giving advice, and it occurs to me that if any of its function of preparing for implementation were put to a committee, which it might be as relatively few of its members are members of the authority, it would not be right for the authority not to control it. I shall think further about what the Minister has said. We will clearly return to this issue when we consider the next Bill, if the drafting of this part about committees remains in the longer term, but before Report I shall think carefully about whether it is relevant for this Bill. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. [Amendments Nos. 104 to 105 not moved.]
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Baroness Noakesmoved Amendment No. 106:
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Baroness NoakesConservative
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moved Amendment No. 106:
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Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove BayWe on these Benches are sympathetic to the noble Baroness’s intention that there should be regular reports and, in part…
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Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove BayNon-affiliated
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We on these Benches are sympathetic to the noble Baroness’s intention that there should be regular reports and, in particular, given the long and dishonourable history of failures of government or public sector IT contracts, an eye should be kept on how that is progressing. I am not sure I look forward to hearing from the Minister whether every six months is goinga bit over the top—slightly too much pulling upthe plant to see how it is growing. In general, on this amendment and a number of others about the operation of the personal accounts scheme, we should always bear in mind that the Association of British Insurers is not totally independent. Of course, it is a competitor to some extent of the Personal Accounts Delivery Authority. While that does not mean that its points are not valid, we should just bear that in mind. So I am sympathetic on the principle, but I wonder whether the proposed reporting is slightly too frequent.
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Lord McKenzie of LutonAs explained, Amendments Nos. 106 and 107 would amend Schedule 6, requiring the delivery authority to provide certain d…
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Lord McKenzie of LutonLabour
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As explained, Amendments Nos. 106 and 107 would amend Schedule 6, requiring the delivery authority to provide certain detail in its annual financial statement. The new clause in Amendment No. 141 would require six-monthly reporting of public expenditure in connection with the personal accounts scheme. Taking the amendments to Schedule 6 first gives me the opportunity to explain the existing reporting requirements set out in that schedule. The provisions require the authority to report annually on its performance and financial position, a requirement which applies equally to other NDPBs. Unlike every other NDPB, the authority will be required to provide this report to the Secretary of State and the Comptroller and Auditor General for examination and approval. Amendments Nos. 106 and 107 would include in primary legislation a requirement to account separately for the implementation and advisory services of the delivery authority. It would also require details to be included of the authority’s expenditure which would be recovered from future income of the scheme derived from the public purse.
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Baroness NoakesI do not think that I will respond to the latter point; it depends on how amenable the Minister is as we proceed throug…
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Baroness NoakesConservative
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I do not think that I will respond to the latter point; it depends on how amenable the Minister is as we proceed through Committee and the later stages of the Bill. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, for his comments. Six months may be too frequent. I note that he has said that the ABI is an interested party. Frankly, so is practically every interest group which gives us detailed briefing, whether it is a consumer group, a trade union or whatever. I have no problem in representing the views of a significant part of our financial services sector which would be significantly affected by a government Bill. The Minister says that the funding et cetera is not for this Bill but that we need to keep an eye on costs as they start to emerge, which they will during this preparatory stage. There is potentially a gap between what we are doing here, setting up accountability for what will happen in the personal accounts scheme when it is delivered, and what will happen once we get another Bill some time in the next Session. I am not entirely convinced that everything will roll over into the next Bill, although clearly we will look at these issues in at least as much detail. There is still the need to see the costs as they emerge. It could be quite some time. The next stage is to have another body on which to focus our attention. Having read Hansard, I will think about what the Minister has said, but for the time being I log the fact that I am not 100 per cent on the same page as the Minister because I think that he is not dealing with an information gap. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. [Amendment No. 107 not moved.] Schedule 6 agreed to. Clause 20 [Initial function of the Authority]: [Amendments Nos. 108 to 110 not moved.]
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Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Baymoved Amendment No. 111:
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Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove BayNon-affiliated
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moved Amendment No. 111:
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Baroness NoakesI have tabled an amendment in this group. We support the principle behind the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Oakesho…
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Baroness NoakesConservative
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I have tabled an amendment in this group. We support the principle behind the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott. Information of the nature indicated in the amendment is important and we too are concerned about the impact of means-testing on how personal accounts will develop in practice, and it is extremely important to ensure that the personal account scheme is designed as far as possible to avoid mis-selling, an issue to which I will return in later amendments. My Amendment No. 120 is grouped with Amendment No. 111 because it deals inter alia with financial advice, also covered in the noble Lord’s amendment. Amendment No. 120 seeks to introduce a requirement for the delivery authority to ensure that it supports objectives for the scheme of access to information and financial advice. It is somewhat less ambitious than the Liberal Democrat proposal in relation to advice. I agree fully that there are great dangers of mis-selling involved in personal accounts, but I am not clear what the answer is on how financial advice should be delivered, and more importantly, who is to bear the cost. At Second Reading I said that I was sceptical about generic advice being an adequate solution, and I look forward to seeing the work being undertaken for the Treasury by Mr Thoresen, but I remain to be convinced that there is a satisfactory generic advice solution to this problem, one which relies so much on the circumstances of individuals. I am also concerned to ensure that no public subsidy is made available for advice on personal accounts because that would upset the level playing field with other savings products, which in effect have to bear the cost of advice. I am not sure that we sign up to the free element of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, unless he means free to the individual but borne as part of the overall costs of the personal account scheme. I can see that charging individuals would not work, but there would be a problem if we expect to see these costs being borne by the public purse. That would be unfair, but if they are loaded on to the costs of the scheme, what will they do to the overall economic returns available to it? I shall mention briefly the other part of Amendment No. 120. It covers access by both individuals and employees to information on rights and responsibilities under the scheme. It is going to be hugely complicated for both employers and employees. So far as employers are concerned, those at the smaller end of the business scale, which in numerical terms comprise by far the largest group, will find this very difficult to apply. We must ensure that the scheme is designed so that proper information is available on websites and in written form; that is as important as ensuring that advice is available to those entering the scheme.
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Baroness Turner of CamdenAt Second Reading I drew attention to briefing I had received from, I think, Scottish Widows, which appeared to indicat…
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Baroness Turner of CamdenLabour
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At Second Reading I drew attention to briefing I had received from, I think, Scottish Widows, which appeared to indicate that there would be an interaction between the entitlement under a personal account system and the entitlement to pension credit, which is means-tested. It could mean that individuals would feel that the contribution they had to make automatically as a result of being automatically enrolled amounted to little more than a cut in wages. If they do not get any return on it, it could not be regarded as being worth their while. That is important and links up with the submissions already made by noble Lords on the necessity for appropriate advice. Amendment No. 111 is an attempt to deal with the situation and I hope that it is given serious consideration by my Front Bench.
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Lord BlackwellI support the issue raised by both these amendments on the advice scheme. It is a key part of the proposed scheme that…
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Lord BlackwellConservative
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I support the issue raised by both these amendments on the advice scheme. It is a key part of the proposed scheme that advice is available to people at an affordable cost. In the past, the major impediment to selling pension schemes to much of the population has been the cost of advice relative to the amount to be invested. The scheme for extending pensions to more individuals seems to rest on the assumption that we can create a low-cost generic advice scheme. I, among others, have expressed scepticism about the extent to which the notion of generic advice is feasible. As soon as you get into an individual situation and deal with a range of circumstances, benefits and debts, it is questionable whether generic advice will be sustainable or whether you will get driven into providing individual advice that deals with those particular circumstances. As soon as you are driven into giving individual advice, you are bound to end up with a costly advice process. Before we go much further in the next Bill into the development of the scheme, we should have an early discussion on practical proposals as to how the proposed generic advice scheme is going to work, and satisfy ourselves that it is plausible and that it is not going to disadvantage pension providers outside the state scheme, as my noble friend Lady Noakes said.
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Baroness Howe of IdlicoteI have a great deal of sympathy with Amendment No. 111 because, as we all know, it will be at the poorer end of society…
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Baroness Howe of IdlicoteCrossbench
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I have a great deal of sympathy with Amendment No. 111 because, as we all know, it will be at the poorer end of society that advice will be lacking. I am keen to see that organisations which are already well known to the public, to which people go for advice about a number of things, are used rather than setting up yet another organisation to give advice. Quite clearly the money to finance this must come out of the total cost of the scheme, and that should be taken into account by the Government. I very much support the idea that organisations such as the CABs should be given the responsibility for this.
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Baroness GreengrossI, too, also support the amendment. I declare an interest as president of the PPI and a trustee of the Resolution Found…
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Baroness GreengrossCrossbench
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I, too, also support the amendment. I declare an interest as president of the PPI and a trustee of the Resolution Foundation. It is perfectly possible to give this kind of advice, but I dislike “generic” because I think that the word is misleading. It is advice which, in many ways, is cautionary and will stop people making mistakes. As has been mentioned, the Resolution Foundation proposal deals with people primarily who are in work but earn less than average earnings. These people are very vulnerable. In this country there is always a group just above benefits which suffers. It is inevitable with tapers and so on that you will get a group of people who have got a little too much to receive benefits of any kind. These people are very much in need of advice but tend not to go to IFAs. I agree with my noble friend Lady Howe; I hope that any scheme could work through organisations that have done a great job in giving people advice so far—of which there are many in this country, particularly the CAB—but we will have to wait for the outcomes of the review to know exactly how it would work. However, there is a very strong case for this kind of advice and the amendment would ease the way to ensure that it happens.
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Lord McKenzie of LutonI thank all noble Lords who have spoken on the amendment. It has given us the opportunity to discuss two issues: the re…
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Lord McKenzie of LutonLabour
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I thank all noble Lords who have spoken on the amendment. It has given us the opportunity to discuss two issues: the return which individuals can expect from saving, and the provision of financial advice. I expect I shall disappoint noble Lords in not being able to provide some of the detail at this stage that people are seeking, but I hope I can satisfy them that work is in hand which is directed in the right way and will produce the kind of information they reasonably seek. I understand the concerns that have led to both amendments being tabled and I agree that the matters are important and appropriate subjects for public debate. However, I cannot agree that it is either necessary or effective to amend this legislation on the Personal Accounts Delivery Authority in order to achieve the desired outcome. Amendment No. 111 proposes that the Personal Accounts Delivery Authority should be required by December 2007 to produce reports on the returns to savings for individuals and the provision of generic financial advice. Such activities are not appropriate for the authority in its initial phase. The Bill sets up the authority initially to act as an adviser to government, and this amendment would place an unnecessary extra pressure on the delivery authority in its initial phase by requiring it to carry out an extensive and complex analysis in a short space of time and to duplicate work already being undertaken in other areas. The department has already published a detailed analysis on possible returns, particularly in Financial Incentives to Save, which was published alongside the Bill. This topic has also been the subject of some debate during the passage of the Bill. The analysis shows that the large majority of those eligible to be automatically enrolled can expect to benefit from saving in a personal account or exempt scheme. Many long-term savers, including many who may be entitled to some pension credit in retirement, could expect £2 plus inflation for every £1 they contribute. Of course, as with all investments, this will depend on stock market returns and other risks. We are continuing to develop this analysis of incentives to save and how particular levels of payback could be expected by different groups. The Pensions Policy Institute independently conducts an analysis in this area, and it would place an unnecessary burden on the delivery authority in its very initial stage to require it to do the same. Amendment No. 111 also refers to generic financial advice, an issue which is the focus of Amendment No. 120. Let me, therefore, turn to that matter. In our White Paper, Personal Accounts: A New Way to Save, we recognise that providing good-quality information will be critical to the success of personal accounts. Advice on saving for retirement is specific to individuals and is regulated by the Financial Services Authority. The personal account scheme, like many other schemes that operate automatic enrolment, is being designed so that regulated financial advice is not required, but that does not mean that people will not have the right information. The noble Lord, Lord Blackwell, is right: regulated financial advice is expensive and has deterred people from entering into fairly modest pension arrangements. It is a key part of the design of personal accounts to address that issue. We recognise that individuals will need information to enable them to make decisions regarding their participation in the scheme—for example, on deciding levels of contributions, fund choices and on whether they should opt out—but it will be for the delivery authority to determine the information strategy for personal accounts. It is recognised that individuals and employers should have information to enable them to understand their rights and responsibilities. In deciding how this information should be provided, the delivery authority will need to take account of the target group. A number of noble Lords recognised that Otto Thoresen is conducting an independent review, and we should await its outcome before we discuss in more detail generic financial advice and how it will impact on personal accounts. It is a very important task he has under way. In summary, I suggest that noble Lords can be assured that the matters with which the amendments are concerned will be properly dealt with, and that it is neither necessary nor appropriate to make them the subject of additional legal obligations on the Personal Accounts Delivery Authority. I therefore urge the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment. Further, in relation to the analysis of returns on savings and the effect that may have on different groups, we are continuing to develop our analysis of the size of the groups that might expect particular levels of payback. That is, as I think noble Lords will acknowledge, a complex area that requires information about individuals’ characteristics over 60 or 70 years. We are hoping to release the results in the autumn, so that is very much work in progress. I hope that has assured noble Lords that we accept that the issues have been raised are relevant, important and serious, and that work is in hand to address them. It would be wrong, however, to deal with them in the way that the amendments suggest.
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Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove BayI thank the Minister for that thoughtful reply. As he stresses, this is work in progress. The issue for us to think abo…
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Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove BayNon-affiliated
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I thank the Minister for that thoughtful reply. As he stresses, this is work in progress. The issue for us to think about carefully as we get to Report, and we will discuss it with the Conservative Front Bench and other noble Lords, is whether the work in progress should be effectively entirely done by the DWP, which is what the Minister is asking us, or whether it would make sense for the authority to do it, as it will be delivering these products.
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Lord McKenzie of LutonThere is clearly an important and integral role for the delivery authority in developing the information strategy, and…
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Lord McKenzie of LutonLabour
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There is clearly an important and integral role for the delivery authority in developing the information strategy, and it will get involved in these issues. We are saying that it would not be appropriate to replicate some of the underlying analysis, because it is under way at the moment.
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Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove BayI hear what the Minister says. I was trying to give a reasonably balanced and constructive response, and was going to s…
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Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove BayNon-affiliated
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I hear what the Minister says. I was trying to give a reasonably balanced and constructive response, and was going to say that we do not want to replicate the work. The deadline in our amendment of 31 December 2007 may well be rather too soon, and I am happy to take that back and consider it. The Minister was stressing, however, that he did not think it was right for the delivery authority to do the analysis in its initial stages. If he meant that it was not right for the authority to do it at all, he should have said so, but we are talking about initial stages and I am responding in that spirit when I say that I think it would be right, but we should think about when and how, after the department has done the initial work, it is then appropriate to move on to an independent and more consumer-focused and consumer-related organisation. That is the point I am trying to make. I thank noble Lords from all sides of the Committee who have spoken in support: the noble Lord, Lord Blackwell, from the Conservative Benches and the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, in general terms, along with the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, from the Labour Benches, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Howe and Lady Greengross, with the latter’s great experience of these matters. We do not want to be too purist on the question of public subsidy, bearing in mind that debt and pensions advice is to some extent integrated, that we subsidise the citizens advice bureaux and other similar organisations for perfectly good public reasons, and that part of the point of the whole exercise will be to help people save so that they avoid landing up on means-tested benefits in future. By all means let us look at how far advice can be paid for by the delivery authority, but if we are trying to get through to people in lower income groups, it is vital that it is free to the individual at the point of need or the point of sale, as the noble Lord, Lord Blackwell, said. There are interesting issues here, and I am inclined to consider carefully what the Minister said. However, I hope that in consultation with the Conservative Front Bench we will be able to arrive at something for Report on which we will be able to press the Minister harder. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
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Baroness Hollis of Heighammoved Amendment No. 112:
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Baroness Hollis of HeighamLabour
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moved Amendment No. 112:
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Baroness Thomas of WinchesterWe strongly support the amendments, as does the Equal Opportunities Commission. I fear that I shall probably say exactl…
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Baroness Thomas of WinchesterLiberal Democrat
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We strongly support the amendments, as does the Equal Opportunities Commission. I fear that I shall probably say exactly what everybody else has said for the past half-hour, but it is worth repeating. On Amendment No. 112, the gender impact assessment published with the Bill is very welcome; it gives a good lead to other Whitehall departments that are involved in issues where the different needs of women and men need to be highlighted. As has been pointed out throughout the Committee stage and just now by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, women’s working lives and earning patterns are very different from those of most men. It is vital that the design of personal accounts is flexible enough to take account of this, especially because, as my noble friend Lord Oakeshott said on the previous amendment, it is estimated that 43 per cent of all female employees are low to middle earners, earning between £5,000 and £15,000 a year. We need to know, for example, about those people who could lose out because of the interaction of means-tested benefits in retirement by saving in personal accounts. The amendment has a clear link to Amendment No. 115, which would require, “a report on the information and advice needs of women and men in relation to”, personal accounts. The challenge has been well highlighted by the Resolution Foundation; it is to strike the right balance between presenting people with information and explaining their options, and encouraging them to remain opted in or suggesting that they opt out. It is clear that a good deal of work has been and is being done on this area, as the Minister said. I understand that we do not yet know how this advice will be delivered, as it is work in progress. The questions are clear. Should it be by telephone only? Should it be by letter? Should it be possible for people to have face-to-face interviews, as in a citizens advice bureau? I would like all these options to be available, but particularly for any advice to be written down in a clear format in easily understood English and—dare I say it?—written by a woman. As we have heard before, the whole pensions system is man-made rather than woman-made, and the balance needs to be redressed. I was going to ask the Minister how the Government were going to take forward the whole question of information and advice, but we have already been told that. Are the Government in close contact with Citizens Advice, whose bureaux bear the brunt of most financial advice at present?
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Baroness Morgan of DrefelinI thank my noble friend Lady Hollis for not withdrawing the amendment before we had a chance to discuss it. It is worth…
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Baroness Morgan of DrefelinLabour
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I thank my noble friend Lady Hollis for not withdrawing the amendment before we had a chance to discuss it. It is worth while continuing the debate on women’s pensions at almost every appropriate moment. My noble friend rightly highlighted two important issues—the need to conduct a gender impact assessment of the personal accounts proposals and the provision of information and advice appropriate for both women and men. When publishing our White Paper Personal Accounts: A New Way to Save, we recognised the importance of enabling both women and men to save for retirement. We also recognised that providing good-quality information would be critical to the success of personal accounts. The EOC has rightly acknowledged that personal accounts have the potential to help to deliver a decent income in retirement for millions of people by enabling more women to save, and at a lower cost. In the regulatory impact assessment that accompanied our White Paper, we set out what I stress was a preliminary gender assessment, which included our estimates for eligibility for automatic enrolment. As we have just heard, these indicated that an estimated 43 per cent of those eligible would be women, which equates to between 2.2 million and 3.4 million female employees. As my noble friend is well aware, our intention is to introduce a further Bill later this year, subject to the will of Parliament. I can reassure her that that Bill will be accompanied by a full gender impact assessment. This will include an assessment of the full proposals for personal accounts. In addition, legislation requires all public bodies to comply with a gender equality duty, and the authority will fall under that duty. Amendment No. 115 would require the delivery authority to produce a report on the information and advice needs of women and men within the first year of establishment, long before personal accounts are launched. We recognise that individuals will need information to enable them to make decisions about whether to participate in occupational pension saving if automatically enrolled, and on levels of contributions and fund choices. Advice on saving for retirement is specific to individuals and is regulated by the Financial Services Authority. The personal accounts scheme, like many others that operate automatic enrolment, is being designed so that regulated financial advice is not required, as we said when debating Amendment No. 120. But that does not mean that people will not have the right to information. We also recognise that different parties, which is what this discussion is about, will require different information and that information needs for women and men vary, depending on their circumstances. I think that the phrase is “depending on their messy lives”, which has been coined during the passage of the Bill. Indeed, the DWP’s research paper The Gender Impact of Pension Reform indicated some evidence that women may lack confidence in their understanding and knowledge of pensions. This is a very important concern. It will be for the delivery authority to determine the information strategy for personal accounts. In providing this information, the delivery authority will need to take account of target groups and their circumstances. The authority will fall under the auspices of the gender equality duty, and a gender impact assessment will be carried out by the department. Noble Lords may be interested to know that that duty also requires the authority to produce the gender equality scheme, with the aim of that scheme being implemented in three years. Under the duty, there is a requirement for the authority to report annually on progress against that scheme, which I thought was an interesting point for this discussion. The noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, talked about working with stakeholders, particularly citizens advice bureaux. The DWP is committed to working closely with stakeholders, particularly stakeholders with such significant expertise. I hope with that my noble friend will consider withdrawing her amendment.
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Baroness Hollis of HeighamI think that my noble friend would be slightly shocked if I were to try to push it further at this stage, but I thank h…
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Baroness Hollis of HeighamLabour
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I think that my noble friend would be slightly shocked if I were to try to push it further at this stage, but I thank her for the care with which she replied and the welcome and warm words of reassurance that she gave us. It is clear that we can continue to expect from the department gender impact studies, certainly next year, and we can seek to turn that into a rolling programme. As for the point about advice, all round the Chamber we have agreed that this is a bigger issue that needs to be addressed in the context of the Thoresen review. It may be that in the light of that review there will be a short debate in this Chamber between now and the next pensions Bill, or we may revisit this during the passage of that Bill. In the light of the warm support from my noble friend, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
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Baroness Noakesmoved Amendment No. 113:
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Baroness NoakesConservative
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moved Amendment No. 113:
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Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove BayI shall make a general point about this and subsequent amendments, following the noble Baroness. The situation is sligh…
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Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove BayNon-affiliated
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I shall make a general point about this and subsequent amendments, following the noble Baroness. The situation is slightly unreal because we are waiting to hear what the Minister says. If we were in the Moses Room I would quite happily just wait to hear what he says then make my comments.
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Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove BayYes, I can anyway. In general, I am quite sympathetic to what the Minister will say—as the noble Baroness forecast his…
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Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove BayNon-affiliated
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Yes, I can anyway. In general, I am quite sympathetic to what the Minister will say—as the noble Baroness forecast his remarks.
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Lord Turner of EcchinswellI am sympathetic to the aim of the amendment, which is to ensure that the concerns about levelling down are appropriate…
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Lord Turner of EcchinswellCrossbench
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I am sympathetic to the aim of the amendment, which is to ensure that the concerns about levelling down are appropriately focused on in government. I am less convinced that it is necessarily a responsibility of the delivery authority itself. We should keep the importance of preventing levelling down before us, but also in context. The fact is that 56 per cent of the private sector workforce have no provision other than that provided by the state, so we want to ensure a balance between bringing that 56 per cent up to some minimum level and the danger that there might be a levelling down of a subset of the 44 per cent towards the new standard level. It is important to realise that it is quite difficult, within the design of the national pensions saving system, to avoid that danger, which is not created by the specific administrative arrangements of the scheme—by whether it is organised, as the ABI wanted, through insurance companies, or, as the NAPF wanted, through competing trusts, or, as the commission proposed and the Government are taking forward, through an overall national agency. The danger is created not by those particular choices but by the actual declaration of what is an absolute minimum standard. The moment we say that the absolute minimum the employer must do is to put in its 3 per cent—if people accept automatic enrolment and pay their 5 per cent—in itself creates the danger of levelling down. It is incredibly important to try to prevent that levelling down. The commission thought about the levers that might prevent that—first, in maintaining a significant element of tax relief incentive towards the provision of pensions beyond the minimum. That is a separate issue from the one which I knew the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, would mention if I did not—the allocation of tax relief between different people—but certainly the overall existence of tax relief is very important. Secondly, it is very important better to communicate to individuals and companies just how generous tax relief is, and that it applies not only to income tax but to the favoured treatment of employer's national insurance when you pay someone through an employer's pension contribution rather than through cash wages. The levers which we could think of for ensuring that there was not levelling down were the preservation of the existing generosity of tax relief and of employer's national insurance relief together with a programme of communication to employers and employees to ensure that they are convinced that being paid in pension contributions rather than cash wages is a sensible thing to do. I think that those are very important objectives. I am just not totally convinced that they are objectives that would be pursued by the delivery authority of the national pension savings scheme itself rather than by other wings within government.
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Lord BlackwellThis is a very important amendment, but first I should remind the Committee of the interests that I declared on Second…
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Lord BlackwellConservative
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This is a very important amendment, but first I should remind the Committee of the interests that I declared on Second Reading. I pick up from where the noble Lord, Lord Turner, ended. It is important to lay down this type of amendment now so that the authority, in doing the preparatory work which we expect it to do over the next few years, is very clear about what the objectives will be by which its success or failure is judged. My fear is that, if we are not careful, we could have a pension authority that, a number of years hence, declares the great success of its scheme in terms of the number of people who have been involved in personal pension accounts but takes no notice and scores nowhere in its target the fact that a very large proportion of those—and in the worst case, all of those—have come about simply by switching people from better schemes into a less good one because of subsidies, the mechanism of advice or the cost structures that have been put around it. Therefore, right from the beginning, we have to be very clear about the goalposts by which we want to measure the scheme’s success and which the preparatory work should be setting out to achieve. For that reason, it is important that this is built into the primary legislation.
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Lord McKenzie of LutonThis has been an interesting debate. The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, and I think the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, antic…
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Lord McKenzie of LutonLabour
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This has been an interesting debate. The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, and I think the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, anticipated what I was going to say at the start of my response, and it will run through the other amendments—that I do not think that particularising these objectives in this Bill is the right way to go. When we move on to the second Bill, it will be important that the objectives are set out. As for the parameters under which the advisory work of the delivery authority will be done, we have published our White Paper, which has been the subject of consultation, and our response to that consultation is to be published imminently. I think that that will clearly set out the Government's objectives for the delivery authority. But I emphasise that we see personal accounts as complementing and not competing with the rest of the market.
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Baroness NoakesI thank the Minister for that reply and other noble Lords who participated in the debate. I think that I thank the nobl…
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Baroness NoakesConservative
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I thank the Minister for that reply and other noble Lords who participated in the debate. I think that I thank the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, who said he thought he knew what the Minister was going to say, and thought that he agreed with it. So perhaps I do not welcome what he contributed to the debate. I fully accept what the noble Lord, Lord Turner, said—that it is difficult to see this as a responsibility of the delivery authority—but I think that the point was effectively met by my noble friend Lord Blackwell, who said that unless the delivery authority has these issues in mind, we will suddenly get a personal accounts system that will in effect not have paid enough attention to these issues. That may be more easily seen in some of my later amendments rather than this one, where the noble Lord, Lord Turner, is suggesting that it is really only the Government who can do anything about the issues. The Minister said that the Government see personal accounts as complementary, not competing. I have to say to him that that is fundamentally naïve. This system will be in competition with the other forms of pension provision, like it or not. It may not be cut-throat, red-in-tooth-and-claw competition from day one, but over time it will become an alternative that makes itself more attractive to the various types of employers which I ran through when I introduced my remarks. Using the term “complementary” rather than “competitive” does not make it any less likely that levelling down will happen.
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Baroness Hollis of HeighamI listened to the noble Baroness’s remarks with interest and respect. Why does she think that that did not happen with…
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Baroness Hollis of HeighamLabour
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I listened to the noble Baroness’s remarks with interest and respect. Why does she think that that did not happen with stakeholders?
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Baroness NoakesBecause stakeholders simply did not happen.
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Baroness NoakesConservative
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Because stakeholders simply did not happen.
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Baroness Hollis of HeighamThe schemes were set up and employers, had they wished, could have used those schemes as an alternative to existing DC…
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Baroness Hollis of HeighamLabour
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The schemes were set up and employers, had they wished, could have used those schemes as an alternative to existing DC schemes. There is very little evidence that they closed the one and went for the other, which was of a less generous and more basic sort.
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Baroness NoakesThe noble Baroness, whom I am sure had great hopes for the stakeholder scheme, has to accept that it was an abject fail…
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Baroness NoakesConservative
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The noble Baroness, whom I am sure had great hopes for the stakeholder scheme, has to accept that it was an abject failure. Many empty stakeholder schemes were set up because employers had to have some form of provision available, but they did not have to try to enrol anybody into them. There was absolutely no encouragement to see stakeholders alongside existing provision. It was an entirely separate experiment which failed. There is absolutely no doubt about that. It was never conceived on the same scale as this. It was never marketed or developed to operate alongside. It simply never took off. The statistics are relatively clear. The sheer volume of saving in stakeholders is testimony to that.
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Baroness Hollis of HeighamI absolutely accept the noble Baroness’s figures—83 per cent of stakeholder schemes were shell schemes. The point I was…
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Baroness Hollis of HeighamLabour
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I absolutely accept the noble Baroness’s figures—83 per cent of stakeholder schemes were shell schemes. The point I was making, which I do not think she addressed, was about the levelling down principle, which she mentioned, and the minimum standard becoming de facto the standard standard, if I may put it that way. We already have the experience of stakeholders in non-shell schemes. Employers could have used such schemes as an alternative to the more generous DC or DB schemes they had, but they did not. They did not level down for those schemes where they were making a contribution. I do not challenge the noble Baroness’s statements about shell schemes at all—I would be the first to agree about that precisely because they did not have an employer’s contribution—but we have a precedent which does not support what she is saying.
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Baroness NoakesWe are comparing chalk and cheese. The stakeholder schemes were simply not designed in the same way. There was no conce…
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Baroness NoakesConservative
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We are comparing chalk and cheese. The stakeholder schemes were simply not designed in the same way. There was no concept of auto-enrolment or minimum contribution levels. They were like an optional extra to ensure that every employer offered something. They were not designed for anything other than that so it is very unsurprising that they had little impact on pension provision. They did not achieve any additional pension provision and did not much change what was already there—that carried on much as it had. We have to regard stakeholders as a nice idea that failed. To return to the amendment before us, the point that I want to make on all these amendments is that unless the delivery authority has these important issues fully in mind—as my noble friend Lord Blackwell said—against which the success or failure of the ultimate scheme will be judged, it is likely that it will give advice or prepare for implementation in a way which does not deliver the result that everybody wants to achieve.
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Lord McKenzie of LutonDoes the noble Baroness accept that irrespective of whether the amendment were written in the Bill in the way that she…
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Lord McKenzie of LutonLabour
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Does the noble Baroness accept that irrespective of whether the amendment were written in the Bill in the way that she proposes, anybody involved in the delivery authority could not help but understand the parameters under which we want personal accounts to develop? I refer to the White Paper, the consultation, the response to it, a myriad of statements around the Bill and the discussions in another place and in this place. Somebody would have to be living on another planet not to understand the thrust of what we want to achieve with personal accounts.
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Baroness NoakesWe shall have to see whether the new chairman and members of the authority are martians or earthlings. I beg leave to w…
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Baroness NoakesConservative
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We shall have to see whether the new chairman and members of the authority are martians or earthlings. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
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Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove BayBefore the noble Baroness sits down, I believe this is my chance to say something.
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Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove BayNon-affiliated
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Before the noble Baroness sits down, I believe this is my chance to say something.
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The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Viscount Allenby of Megiddo)No, the amendment has been withdrawn.
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The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Viscount Allenby of Megiddo)Crossbench
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No, the amendment has been withdrawn.
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Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove BayI am sorry but I specifically asked whether I could say something when I had heard the Minister’s reply and I was told…
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Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove BayNon-affiliated
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I am sorry but I specifically asked whether I could say something when I had heard the Minister’s reply and I was told by the Front Bench that I could. Now they are telling me that I cannot.
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Lord SkelmersdaleI do not know whether the Government Whip, if I may address her as such on this occasion, would agree with me, but once…
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Lord SkelmersdaleConservative
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I do not know whether the Government Whip, if I may address her as such on this occasion, would agree with me, but once an amendment has been withdrawn one goes on to the next one.
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Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove BayIn that case, I shall make my points on the next amendment because they are fairly general. However, I find this situat…
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Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove BayNon-affiliated
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In that case, I shall make my points on the next amendment because they are fairly general. However, I find this situation unsatisfactory. I never had that problem in Grand Committee. I was always given the chance to speak before the relevant amendment was withdrawn.
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Baroness Morgan of DrefelinI am sure that the Committee will agree that we have a number of amendments on a similar theme. Perhaps the noble Lord…
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Baroness Morgan of DrefelinLabour
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I am sure that the Committee will agree that we have a number of amendments on a similar theme. Perhaps the noble Lord will be able to make his comments as we go through those amendments.
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Baroness Noakesmoved Amendment No. 114:
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Baroness NoakesConservative
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moved Amendment No. 114:
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Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove BayI speak to these amendments and the series of amendments the noble Baroness is moving about the objectives of the deliv…
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Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove BayNon-affiliated
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I speak to these amendments and the series of amendments the noble Baroness is moving about the objectives of the delivery authority. These are probably unnecessarily detailed. I am not sure, operationally, what guidance in practice the delivery authority is meant to deduce from them. I am not sure how they are meant to work. It is not appropriate to include them in the Bill. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, that the main reason that stakeholders did not work and did not minimise burdens on employers was that they were much too costly. They were not an attractive option, which is why levelling down does not apply, as we discussed. In general, I do not consider that, operationally, these amendments take us much further forward. I should have thought that what the Minister said about the undertakings he is giving and the discussions in both this and the other place would be sufficient.
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Lord McKenzie of LutonThe noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, pre-empted the thrust of my reply but I shall give it anyway. We are invited to conside…
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Lord McKenzie of LutonLabour
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The noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, pre-empted the thrust of my reply but I shall give it anyway. We are invited to consider two matters: first, the extent to which the delivery authority will liaise with established pensions and financial bodies; and, secondly, how we intend to ensure that the personal accounts scheme is designed in a way that minimises the burdens on employers. As regards the first amendment, the Bill does not specify with whom the authority should consult. This is to allow the delivery authority to co-operate and consult with whomever it thinks appropriate. It is a matter for the authority’s discretion, based on the expertise and experience of its members. We drafted the Bill in this way intentionally to allow the members of the authority to consult with all interested parties. I would expect the delivery authority to build effective co-operation with a number of bodies which can advise on financial, commercial and operational consequences. It would be an integral part of the successful development of personal accounts. Therefore, it is hard to imagine that it would choose to operate without the benefit of a good working relationship with the Pensions Regulator, the Financial Services Authority and, of course, the Secretary of State. I am sure that the authority will need to consult a number of other organisations as well, including experts in the pensions and finance industry.
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Baroness NoakesI thank the Minister for that reply. I know that he will say the same thing on all the amendments; I am expecting that.…
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Baroness NoakesConservative
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I thank the Minister for that reply. I know that he will say the same thing on all the amendments; I am expecting that. I remind him that Clause 20(1) says: “The Authority may do anything it thinks appropriate for preparing for the implementation of, or for advising on the modification of, any relevant proposals”. Clearly, the authority has to have some framework within which to decide whether to do “anything”, otherwise “anything” could mean anything under the sun. The amendments are trying to set an appropriate framework within which the authority should work. The Minister suggested on the previous amendments, “It kind of knows what we are about because it can read all the stuff”. If we were setting up an authority to do things, we would give it objectives; it is curious that, just because it is set up to prepare for doing things, it does not have similar objectives. I am not going to repeat that on every group of amendments, because in some ways the Minister has said that we are on the same page in the outcome sought. It is worth rehearsing those issues, because we think that it is important that the delivery authority has those issues firmly in mind. We can have it recorded in Hansard that the Minister also thinks that it is important. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. [Amendment No. 115 not moved.]
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Baroness Noakesmoved Amendment No. 116:
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Baroness NoakesConservative
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moved Amendment No. 116:
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Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove BayWhat is the Minister’s latest estimate of when the Government will propose the level of cap? On these Benches we are ke…
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Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove BayNon-affiliated
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What is the Minister’s latest estimate of when the Government will propose the level of cap? On these Benches we are keen on a higher rather than lower level. It is more important that people should not be discouraged from saving, even through this scheme. We are not unduly worried about the risk of so-called unfair competition, but we are concerned about people who may have erratic earnings patterns, for whom this scheme will be particularly designed, and we do not want them to be discouraged from putting a reasonable lump into it when they have a good year.
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Lord BlackwellPerhaps I may anticipate the general answer that the Minister will give, in that guidance is already available on much…
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Lord BlackwellConservative
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Perhaps I may anticipate the general answer that the Minister will give, in that guidance is already available on much of the information covered by the amendments. However, I would press him on unfair competition. Further to his earlier point about regulated advice and generic advice, if generic advice on basic pension accounts is to be unregulated, is the implication that people who believe that they have been misadvised will not be able to seek compensation for mis-selling? If we are creating a set of products and a set of advice around them which does not have that mis-selling risk associated with it and the costs of compliance that are driven by that risk, we need to understand that that would be an issue of unfair competition. If there is a division between products that can be sold only by regulated advice and those that can be sold by generic advice, is the implication that an agency giving pension advice will be able to advise only on whether a particular form of basic pension account is applicable and not on whether an alternative, perhaps regulated, product would be better suited to someone’s needs? We need to understand whether it is the intention to set up a system that can advise people only on a limited and maybe suboptimal set of available products. If we are dismissing the need to write into the Bill conditions on unfair competition, it would be helpful clearly to understand where the Government wish to draw those boundary lines on fair and unfair competition.
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Lord McKenzie of LutonSubject to the general point on not needing to be specific in the Bill at this stage, the noble Baroness is right to sa…
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Lord McKenzie of LutonLabour
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Subject to the general point on not needing to be specific in the Bill at this stage, the noble Baroness is right to say that broadly we are speaking from the same page on this. I revert to the point that I believe that personal accounts will be designed to complement rather than compete with existing pension provision. However, I entirely accept that just to assert that will not make it happen. We believe that automatic enrolment will result in a significant increase in participation among the target group. Our research suggests that between 6 million and 10 million pension savers will join the personal accounts scheme. In the long term, we expect the scheme to have between £100 billion and £200 billion in funds under management. The noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, and the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, raised the issue of whether the cap would squeeze out other providers. The Government have consulted on the annual limit of £5,000 on contributions into personal accounts. We are considering a wide range of views on what a suitable contribution limit should be and we are analysing a range of impacts that a contribution limit could have on individuals, the pensions market and the personal accounts scheme. The final decision will balance the twin aims of focusing personal accounts on moderate-to-low earners and allowing sufficient flexibility for individuals within the scheme who wish to save more. We plan to announce our determination on this as part of the imminent consultation response. I cannot be more specific.
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Baroness NoakesI asked the Minister to comment on the ABI’s estimate that 90 per cent of pension savings would be swept into personal…
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Baroness NoakesConservative
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I asked the Minister to comment on the ABI’s estimate that 90 per cent of pension savings would be swept into personal accounts at a cap level of £5,000. I know that he is saying that analysis is being carried out and that something will be announced. However, this point has been in the public arena for more than four months, which is why I asked for the Minister’s comment. I would have hoped that his officials had an answer to that, at least.
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Lord McKenzie of LutonIf my officials have a detailed answer to that before I sit down, I am sure that a note will wend its way to me from th…
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Lord McKenzie of LutonLabour
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If my officials have a detailed answer to that before I sit down, I am sure that a note will wend its way to me from the Box. If it does not arrive by the time our discussion on this amendment concludes, I will write to the noble Baroness. I think that it will be covered in our response to the consultation document, but to the extent that it is not, I will ensure that she receives a full reply. I do not have the specific information that she seeks. We do not believe that personal accounts will represent unfair competition to other savings products, because it will be designed as a basic, defined-contribution pension scheme, with limited investment choice and no added insurance features. Further, the restriction on transfers and a limit on contributions will target the scheme appropriately and allow scope for the rest of the pensions market. More widely, pre-existing pensions products should also benefit from the introduction of automatic enrolment and minimum employer contributions. We intend that the personal accounts scheme be self-financing in the long term through money recovered from membership charges. However, there will be a need to provide for the set-up in the short term. I am sorry to sound like a gramophone record, but financing further forward will be a matter for the detail of the second pensions Bill. My honourable friend James Purnell has made it clear that initially the funding of the authority will be grant in aid. We will discuss the extent to which any of that initial phase becomes rechargeable, depending on whether it is for the cost of the initial advice or for setting up and implementing the scheme, as part of the second Bill. On the point made by the noble Baroness, I can now say that the ABI’s analysis has been taken into account in our deliberations. We have also received analysis from the NAPF and Which?. What that led us to conclude will, I hope, be apparent very soon.
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Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove BayI know that the Minister is not teasing us, but if that conclusion is not imminent, it would be very helpful to the Hou…
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Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove BayNon-affiliated
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I know that the Minister is not teasing us, but if that conclusion is not imminent, it would be very helpful to the House in its consideration of the Bill if the Government’s proposal could be announced before Report stage.
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Lord McKenzie of LutonI believe that it will. I understand that it is likely to happen this week—I see a nod from the Box. It should certainl…
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Lord McKenzie of LutonLabour
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I believe that it will. I understand that it is likely to happen this week—I see a nod from the Box. It should certainly be with us by Report, when we can deal with the matter in more detail. The noble Lord, Lord Blackwell, asked about potential mis-selling. Participation in occupational pension saving will be a feature of employment and will not involve the creation of a contract between the pension provider and the individual member. The plan to introduce automatic enrolment will not involve the sale of a product to a consumer. As such, I do not think that mis-selling can take place in the technical sense. The noble Lord made a range of interesting points on regulated advice, generic advice and whether someone could give both—and how all of that would interrelate. I am sorry to say that we will have to wait to see the outcome of the Thorensen review, but they are important and practical issues that would need to be addressed as part of our conclusions. Again, the whole thrust of these points is that they are genuinely matters for the second Pensions Bill. We will have a lot to debate in that Bill, but I think that we will make more sense of the discussion at that stage, when we have the further information and, in particular, the response to the consultation document.
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Baroness NoakesI thank the Minister for that reply. I was disappointed that he felt unable to share even the smallest bit of analysis…
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Baroness NoakesConservative
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I thank the Minister for that reply. I was disappointed that he felt unable to share even the smallest bit of analysis from the stuff that is due imminently from the Department for Work and Pensions. Doubtless we will have to wait with bated breath to see what emerges from that and to see whether we wish to discuss any aspects of it on Report. My noble friend Lord Blackwell raised important issues about the boundaries between unfair and fair competition. I do not think that the Minister responded to those points. They are strongly held concerns among certain parts of the financial services industry, but we will need to read carefully in Hansard what he said before deciding whether that has put an end to that issue as regards this Bill. However, I accept that we will return to all these issues in force on the next Bill. We will also return to whether the initial costs incurred by the authority need to be rolled over into the costings for the board when it is finally set up. I am pleased to see that at least the Minister has not ruled that out and I look forward to debating that with him in due course. For today, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. [Amendment No. 117 not moved.]
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Baroness Noakesmoved Amendment No. 118:
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Baroness NoakesConservative
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moved Amendment No. 118:
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Baroness Gibson of Market RasenAmendments Nos. 122A and 122B stand in my name. The references to supporting best practice in terms of shareholder acti…
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Baroness Gibson of Market RasenLabour
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Amendments Nos. 122A and 122B stand in my name. The references to supporting best practice in terms of shareholder activism and the best interests of members are in line with Principle 6 of the Myners report, Institutional Investment in the United Kingdom: A Review, which was published by the Treasury in 2001. This report sought to provide some basic principles of an effective approach to investment decision-making, in order to promote the long-term health of investments. Support for such best practice is also found in the Institutional Shareholders’ Committee statement of principles, The Responsibilities of Institutional Shareholders and Agents. This sets out best practice for institutional shareholders and agents with regard to their responsibilities in respect of investee companies. Members of the ISC include the Association of British Insurers, the Association of Investment Trust Companies, the National Association of Pension Funds and the Investment Management Association. Amendment No. 122B aims to ensure that there are some socially responsible ethical funds as options. The wording is based on that of the Pensions Act investment regulations.
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Lord McKenzie of LutonI am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, for tabling Amendment No. 118 and to my noble friend Lady Gibson for…
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Lord McKenzie of LutonLabour
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I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, for tabling Amendment No. 118 and to my noble friend Lady Gibson for tabling Amendments Nos. 122A and 122B, which all relate to investment policy for personal accounts. I shall deal with Amendments Nos. 118 and 122B first. They are similar in that both would require that the objectives of the scheme in relation to investments and charges are set out in the Bill. The December White Paper, Personal Accounts: A New Way to Save, set out a broad overview of the personal accounts scheme objectives, investment expectations and charges structures. As we have just discussed, we will shortly be publishing a response to the White Paper consultation. As we have debated on a number of occasions this evening, the delivery authority will initially be supporting the Government by providing advice and recommendations on the commercial and operational impact of options relating to personal accounts. Consideration of investment choices will form part of this advice. Amendment No. 122A, tabled by my noble friend Lady Gibson, would place a requirement on the delivery authority to develop an investment strategy based on criteria such as industry best practice relating to corporate social responsibility. As the December White Paper sets out, social, environmental and ethical investment represents a small but growing proportion of total UK investment. Given an apparent consumer demand, the Government envisage that personal accounts will include appropriate SEE choices. However, as the White Paper also sets out, investments based on a strategy of corporate social responsibility may, for example, require more supervision and monitoring, which can make them more expensive. I am sure that, in its development of an investment strategy for the personal accounts scheme, the delivery authority will consider all methods of investments, levels of shareholder engagement and industry best practices. Therefore, I hope that noble Lords will agree that it is not appropriate to commit the authority to follow a specific objective—a commitment that would compromise its consideration of all investment methods. Our proposed Bill planned for later this year, subject to the will of Parliament, will provide detail of the personal accounts scheme and give us an opportunity for a full debate. Accordingly, I hope that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.
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Baroness NoakesI thank the Minister. At the end, he said that he did not want the Bill to compromise consideration of all investments.…
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Baroness NoakesConservative
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I thank the Minister. At the end, he said that he did not want the Bill to compromise consideration of all investments. I do not think that either my amendment or that of the noble Baroness, Lady Gibson, seeks in any way to compromise anything. Indeed, both are permissive and simply require certain things to be looked at. I think that the Minister got the wrong end of the stick there; otherwise, I accept what he said about the way in which investment will be prepared for. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
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Baroness Noakesmoved Amendment No. 119:
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Baroness NoakesConservative
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moved Amendment No. 119:
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Baroness Morgan of DrefelinI am happy to welcome the discussion around these amendments and I thank the noble Baroness for tabling them. They requ…
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Baroness Morgan of DrefelinLabour
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I am happy to welcome the discussion around these amendments and I thank the noble Baroness for tabling them. They require the authority to ensure that its actions and advice support the scheme’s objectives and that the authority complies with the Data Protection Act. Noble Lords will be aware that the purpose of the Bill is to focus on the delivery aspect of the scheme rather than the scheme itself or the scheme’s objectives. The authority in its initial stage will be advising the Government on the commercial and operational implications of options for personal accounts. The Government will continue to set the policy framework and in so doing will look closely at the objectives of the scheme. Although I do not wish to sound like my noble friend’s broken record, I will just add that these will be subject to the proposed second pensions Bill, which is intended to cover all pertinent details of the personal accounts scheme. With regard to the authority ensuring that its actions and advice support the scheme’s objectives of being economically viable, as described in the White Paper, there is an over-riding requirement that applies to all trustee-based occupational pension schemes under domestic and European law that trustees must act only in the best interests of the scheme’s members. I turn to the amendment to add a subsection to ensure complicity with the Data Protection Act. I assure the noble Baroness that the provisions already within the Bill mean that the delivery authority is legally bound to adhere to the rules and guidance within that Act. The 1998 Act applies to all public authorities and the delivery authority, as created by the Bill, will be a public authority. Therefore, the amendment is unnecessary. The Government recognise the importance of the correct and lawful processing of personal data in maintaining confidence in our operations. We fully endorse and adhere to the principles set out in the Data Protection Act 1998. The delivery authority and, in due course, the personal accounts board will meet the provisions and specific data principles set out in Schedule 1 to the Act. I hope that I have picked up all the points raised by the noble Baroness. If not, I shall be happy to remit the matter later.
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Baroness NoakesI thank the noble Baroness for that reply. In her keenness not to sound like a broken record, she might have missed one…
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Baroness NoakesConservative
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I thank the noble Baroness for that reply. In her keenness not to sound like a broken record, she might have missed one or two points. Of course the Act applies to the delivery authority, but there will be no personal data of any significance. The importance of the amendment is to ensure that when you design a scheme for somebody else to operate, you ensure that you embed the principles of the Data Protection Act into the scheme design. Ditto for economy and efficiency: any public authority will have an obligation to be economic and efficient with its own money, but if it is designing something for somebody else, does it have that obligation? That is not at all clear, which is why I raised the issue. That is what the Minister did not address, but I shall not trouble the Committee further this evening. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. [Amendments Nos. 120 to 122B not moved.]
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Baroness Noakesmoved Amendment No. 123:
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Baroness NoakesConservative
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moved Amendment No. 123:
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Baroness Morgan of DrefelinIt seems to me that one of the main points of parliamentary scrutiny around the work of the authority will be through t…
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Baroness Morgan of DrefelinLabour
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It seems to me that one of the main points of parliamentary scrutiny around the work of the authority will be through the second pensions Bill next year, when we will have the opportunity to scrutinise in detail the product of its work. I see that as being a very important outcome of scrutiny for this House and another place. In tabling the amendments the noble Baroness has raised some worthy and interesting points concerning the provision for the Secretary of State to issue guidance to the delivery authority about the discharge of its function. The authority will be a non-departmental public body, which during its initial phase will be funded entirely through government grant. As such, I believe that it is right that the Secretary of State is able to issue appropriate guidance from time to time to facilitate a constructive relationship with the authority. However, Amendment No. 123 would mean that the delivery authority could simply disregard any guidance issued under Clause 20(6). Clause 20(7), which the amendment seeks to remove, ensures that the authority thinks about such guidance but is not bound by it. The authority will be independent but, as I explained, during the initial stage it will advise the Secretary of State and, in particular, support the Government in understanding the operational and commercial implications of options for personal accounts. It is important that the Secretary of State can be sure that his guidance will at least be considered. By that, I mean that the authority, in “having regard to” guidance, must take it into account, but it is not obliged to follow it. If it does not follow the guidance, it will be obliged to explain why it has not done so. I understand the noble Baroness’s concerns in tabling Amendment No. 124. In tabling an amendment to specify that guidance issued by the Secretary of State must be subject to such a consultation process, I believe her intention is to ensure that there is ongoing engagement with stakeholders on the development of personal accounts. I hope I can reassure her that we have fostered a consensual approach in developing proposals for personal accounts. We have consulted widely on the proposals, both formally and informally. Indeed, we will shortly be publishing a response to our December White Paper consultation. The great number of responses we had to the White Paper is indicative of how successful our consultation has been. We intend that it will continue as we move forward. As my honourable friend James Purnell indicated in Committee in the other place: “We will continue to do that, to hold a range of seminars and to consult people widely … we will continue to be open in our dealings with the authority”.—[Official Report, Commons, Pensions Bill Committee, 6/2/07; cols. 311-12.] The relationship between the Government and the authority during this initial phase will be based around the provision of advice. We should not mistake it for a formal relationship, such as that which exists between regulators and the Government. An effective relationship, based on dialogue, is clearly crucial in the initial phase and, as I explained, the Secretary of State’s ability to issue guidance is undoubtedly a key part of this. In the light of that, laying such information before Parliament, as Amendment No. 125 suggests, would appear somewhat heavy-handed. It is not possible to specify what every piece of guidance might cover. Indeed, it is likely that much of the guidance will be issued on an ad hoc basis and will concern administrative or presentational matters—for instance, the format of a report or the presentation of advice. Other guidance issued by the Secretary of State might concern the policy or commercial issues that the authority is being asked to advise upon. Making provision for the Secretary of State to issue guidance enables him to suggest areas where the expertise and knowledge of the delivery authority could be put to best use. Requiring such guidance to be made public, as the noble Baroness seeks to do, may inhibit the provision of free and frank advice. However, we will of course make public such information as is appropriate in accordance with conventions relating to non-departmental public bodies. For example, the management statement and financial memorandum will be published. I hope noble Lords will agree that it would not be appropriate to tie down the relationship between the Secretary of State and the authority in the detail that is envisaged in these amendments, although I fully take on board the noble Baroness’s comments about the need to be transparent and open in the way that we work. I hope that I have picked up all the points that she made. If not, I will be very happy to remit further.
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Baroness NoakesI thank the Minister for that reply, but I cannot actually say that she picked up the points about transparency with an…
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Baroness NoakesConservative
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I thank the Minister for that reply, but I cannot actually say that she picked up the points about transparency with any sincerity. I shall ask her one question before I decide what to do about my amendment. She said that the guidance had to be considered, but the authority is not obliged to follow it, and that is what I expected her to say. She then went on to say that it would have to explain its position. Where does the Bill state that when the authority does not comply with the guidance it has to explain its non-compliance?
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Baroness Morgan of DrefelinThat is an interpretation of the phrase “will have regard to”. If I am incorrect on that, I am happy to clarify it furt…
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Baroness Morgan of DrefelinLabour
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That is an interpretation of the phrase “will have regard to”. If I am incorrect on that, I am happy to clarify it further.
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Baroness NoakesI thank the Minister for that; I found it quite extraordinary. When others have checked that, we will doubtless be able…
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Baroness NoakesConservative
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I thank the Minister for that; I found it quite extraordinary. When others have checked that, we will doubtless be able to return to it. In general, I was not satisfied with the answer stating that guidance will be issued, we will not really know about it until we get the next Bill when we will see the outcome of that guidance, and that it is not appropriate to tell Parliament because it might be administrative—does that matter?—or might be guidance on the policy or commercial issues that the Secretary of State wants advice on. That is not guidance; it is a simple request for information and does not come under that section. Guidance is doing things or not doing things in a particular way. At the end of the Minister’s explanation, I am more mystified about how this will work than I was when I started. I thought I could predict some of the responses, but I found some of them pretty bizarre. It is not quite late enough for me to press this issue to a Division, so I shall withdraw the amendment. However, I am pretty certain that I will return to it on Report. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. [Amendments Nos. 124 and 125 not moved.] On Question, Whether Clause 20 shall stand part of the Bill?
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Lord SkelmersdaleI had not intended to interrupt proceedings, but it is hardly surprising that Clause 20 has taken something like two an…
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Lord SkelmersdaleConservative
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I had not intended to interrupt proceedings, but it is hardly surprising that Clause 20 has taken something like two and a half hours to debate. My noble friend, aided—I can almost say abetted—by my noble friend Lord Blackwell and the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, has asked a series of pertinent questions about the Government’s attitude to the advice that they are going to give to the delivery authority. My noble friend mentioned that she is worried that: “The Authority may do anything it thinks appropriate for preparing for the implementation of, or for advising on the modification of, any relevant proposals about personal accounts”. From Clause 20(2), we learn exactly what relevant proposals and personal accounts are. This is entirely in the hands of the Secretary of State. I noticed that on Amendment No. 116, the Minister said that it was much more sensible to leave the debate to the next Bill. On Amendment No. 119, the noble Baroness told us that the Government will set the framework for the authority. Before the next stage of the Bill, we need an answer on whether Parliament will have the slightest idea what instructions and requests the Government will make for the new authority before it legally adopts them. That is the key to all discussion on Clause 20, and that will be the case on Report.
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Lord McKenzie of LutonI presume that the noble Lord was talking to Clause 20 stand part. We have gone through a whole series of amendments. I…
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Lord McKenzie of LutonLabour
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I presume that the noble Lord was talking to Clause 20 stand part. We have gone through a whole series of amendments. I genuinely believe that most of them were considering detail that we will debate under the next Bill. He asked what information will be made available. The answer is the whole Bill—the whole of the proposals. There will be plenty of opportunity to understand the advice that the delivery authority has given and what that leads to in the framework of the next Bill, and to probe what guidance was given by the Secretary of State and what other information was taken into account. I am not sure why the noble Lord is so exercised by this, because the whole process to date has been open, transparent and inclusive. There has been engagement with stakeholders and opposition parties. There is nothing sinister about this, but he has pressed us continually tonight on a range of matters that are the detail that will flow from that advice. Specifically on the issue that the authority, “may do anything that it thinks appropriate”, although that may seem quite broad, we must consider the power in its entirety. The clause goes on to describe the parameters within which the authority must work and makes it clear that the authority is limited in its remit. It can advise only on clearly defined proposals about personal accounts. We will return to this in detail at the next stage. There is nothing that we will consider in the next Bill which the noble Lord and his colleagues will not be fully able to probe so as to understand the parameters in which it has been developed, and to challenge or try to amend it, as he and his colleagues do very effectively.
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Lord SkelmersdaleThe Minister misses the point. The reason that I ask whether we can see the advice before it is formally adopted by the…
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Lord SkelmersdaleConservative
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The Minister misses the point. The reason that I ask whether we can see the advice before it is formally adopted by the authority is to make absolutely certain that the various points covered in debate during the past two and a half hours are included. If not, the authority, by definition, will be working on the wrong premise.
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Lord McKenzie of LutonI cannot believe that someone charged with being the chair or chief executive of the authority, being part of its board…
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Lord McKenzie of LutonLabour
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I cannot believe that someone charged with being the chair or chief executive of the authority, being part of its board, would not have due regard to our debates, the White Paper, the consultation and the responses to all that. If that were the case, we would simply end up with the wrong people. If the fear is that the range of issues that have been rightly raised as needing to be addressed are somehow to be forgotten, I suggest that it is fanciful. If that happens, it is because we have appointed the wrong people to run the delivery authority, and I do not believe that that will be the case.
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Lord SkelmersdaleThe fact that I am an unpaid cynic does not alter the fact that my request has been made and I expect it to be answered…
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Lord SkelmersdaleConservative
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The fact that I am an unpaid cynic does not alter the fact that my request has been made and I expect it to be answered in due course, but I shall not prolong the debate at this time of night. Clause 20 agreed to. Clause 21 [Management of the Authority]: [Amendments Nos. 126 to 129 not moved.] Clause 21 agreed to.
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Baroness Noakesmoved Amendment No. 130:
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Baroness NoakesConservative
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moved Amendment No. 130:
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Lord McKenzie of LutonI thank the noble Baroness for raising this matter. The Freedom of Information Act provides for transparency in the wor…
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Lord McKenzie of LutonLabour
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I thank the noble Baroness for raising this matter. The Freedom of Information Act provides for transparency in the workings of government departments and public bodies. It makes clear the circumstances in which information should be disclosed, and sets a framework for applying appropriate exemptions to the disclosure of information. All information held by a public body can be released to the public unless it is exempt under the Act. We have sought in the Bill to add the Personal Accounts Delivery Authority to the list of public bodies covered by the Freedom of Information Act. The authority may therefore, if appropriate, use the exemption provided in Section 36 of the Act. Providing the authority with the ability to use an exemption is appropriate to its status. As noble Lords will know, Part VI of Schedule 1 to the Act has a very extensive list of public bodies and offices, ranging from the National Gallery to the Bank of England, which are covered by the Act, including Section 36. Section 36 is very clear about the basis of any exemption that could be used. An exemption would be applied case by case, giving full consideration to the public interest. Information could be judged to be exempt if its release would prejudice collective responsibility, the free and frank provision of advice, or the effective conduct of public affairs. Each case of disclosure depends on the facts. Clearly, we are establishing an independent delivery authority, bringing in expertise and skills to give full and best advice on proposals about personal accounts. In carrying out this function, the authority could advise government on matters in which there is public interest. Having the authority covered by the Freedom of Information Act strikes a balance, and helps to give confidence to the authority in providing free and frank advice, but also to the public where there is a strong genuine public interest in seeing information. It is therefore right that the authority, like other public bodies, is offered the protection set out in Section 36. Of course, any use of the exemptions by the delivery authority would be subject to the usual protections. Any member of the public can appeal to the Information Commissioner if they think that a public authority is abusing the exemptions in the Freedom of Information Act. Moreover, the authority, as a public body covered by the Act, will be required to provide information through a publication scheme. A publication scheme is both a public commitment to make certain information available and a guide to how that information can be obtained. Additionally, the Bill makes it clear that the authority will produce an annual report and accounts. These will be public documents that will include details of the authority’s work, the issues on which it has advised and the progress that it has made towards delivering its remit. The authority will also be subject to normal NDPB scrutiny and accountability arrangements. For example, a management statement and financial memorandum will be agreed between it and the DWP, providing a clear operating framework. These documents will also be published. A range of information will be available, but to deny the authority the protection of Section 36, which every other public body gets, is entirely wrong.
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Baroness NoakesI thank the Minister for that reply, which is perhaps not entirely surprising. Of course, the Freedom of Information Ac…
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Baroness NoakesConservative
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I thank the Minister for that reply, which is perhaps not entirely surprising. Of course, the Freedom of Information Act is of the Government’s invention. Ever since they passed it, they have been trying not to disclose information, which is why we have whole sections of every government department set up for FOI compliance. We know that it takes a very long time to get information out—just take the amount of time it took to get out of the Treasury the information about the ACT raid on pension funds, with which the Minister is extremely familiar.
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Lord McKenzie of LutonThat is unfair. This Government introduced the provision in the first place. We did not have a Freedom of Information A…
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Lord McKenzie of LutonLabour
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That is unfair. This Government introduced the provision in the first place. We did not have a Freedom of Information Act under a Conservative Government. Yes, there will be cases at the margins where there might be an argument about whether exemption should or should not apply. That is the case for any rule. It really is unfair to say that this Government have sought to be, effectively, secret on these things. We introduced this Act and want it to operate.
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Baroness NoakesThe Ministry of Justice, as I believe we now call it, is carefully trying to find ways of making the Act less effective…
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Baroness NoakesConservative
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The Ministry of Justice, as I believe we now call it, is carefully trying to find ways of making the Act less effective from the perspective of those who are now seeking information. We all know that. I am disappointed with the Minister’s response. I believe that it is important to have the pressures of maximum transparency on the delivery authority. I will not press this amendment or return to it but, if we ultimately discover that the delivery authority does not demonstrate those virtues of the pursuit of transparency in due course, the Minister’s words will come back to haunt him. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 22 [Winding up of the Authority]:
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Baroness Noakesmoved Amendment No. 131:
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Baroness NoakesConservative
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moved Amendment No. 131:
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Lord McKenzie of LutonPerhaps it would help if I start by explaining why we have included Clause 22, before tackling the substance of the ame…
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Lord McKenzie of LutonLabour
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Perhaps it would help if I start by explaining why we have included Clause 22, before tackling the substance of the amendments. This Bill provides for the establishment of the delivery authority with an initial remit that is focused on advising the Secretary of State on the operational and commercial implications of options and on the design of the commercial strategy. We made it clear in the White Paper that we intend to extend the remit of the delivery authority in a second Bill, subject to the will of Parliament, so that it can take responsibility for delivering the scheme of personal accounts. The White Paper also makes it clear that the live running of personal accounts will be managed by a separate body, the personal accounts board. However, we would not wish to pre-empt the will of Parliament by taking for granted its approval of a second pensions Bill. If the second Bill did not command the support of Parliament, we would of course no longer need a delivery authority, so it is sensible that we make provision for it to be wound up. The clause provides for that eventuality. Clause 22 provides the Secretary of State with the power to dissolve the authority if at any time, as the result of the abandonment or modification of any relevant proposals about personal accounts, it appears that it is no longer necessary for the authority to continue to exist. After 2008, if the delivery authority is no longer needed, the Secretary of State must provide for its dissolution. Taking the words of the noble Baroness, we would get rid of a quango if there was no longer any use for it. The clause should not be mistaken for a provision for the winding-up of the authority on completion of its work. It is merely a precautionary measure for use should the proposed second pensions Bill not receive Parliament’s support. The second Bill, which will extend the remit of the delivery authority so that it can deliver the scheme, will contain measures for the dissolution of the delivery authority on completion of its remit. Therefore, requiring the Secretary of State to wind up the delivery authority by 2013, as Amendment No. 134 suggests, is undesirable. Noble Lords will have the chance to scrutinise that further legislation at the appropriate time. The White Paper makes very clear our commitment to delivering personal accounts through a delivery authority, and we do not envisage needing to use this clause. It is included only as a precaution and out of respect for Parliament. I hope that that explanation will enable the noble Baroness to withdraw the amendment.
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Baroness NoakesI thank the Minister for that response, which I shall read carefully in Hansard. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.…
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Baroness NoakesConservative
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I thank the Minister for that response, which I shall read carefully in Hansard. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. [Amendments Nos. 132 to 136 not moved.] Clause 22 agreed to.
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Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Baymoved Amendment No. 137:
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Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove BayNon-affiliated
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moved Amendment No. 137:
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Lord Turner of EcchinswellThis amendment is designed to encourage the Government to take an issue seriously and, indeed, to encourage society mor…
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Lord Turner of EcchinswellCrossbench
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This amendment is designed to encourage the Government to take an issue seriously and, indeed, to encourage society more generally, trade unions and all relevant parties to do so. It is in that spirit that I speak in its support. I also speak as someone who believes that salary-related pensions are a sensible part of public sector pay packages and who accepts that there is nothing inherently wrong with some of these being unfunded and therefore paid for out of future taxation. It is essential, however, that the total burden on future taxpayers is seen as reasonable, relative to other demands on tax revenues, that the retirement age terms of the pensions are seen as fair, relative to those facing the rest of society, and that the arrangements are internally fair between different employees within the public sector. On each of those three criteria—cost, fairness relative to the private sector and fairness within the public sector—the deal that the Government reached with the unions in 2005 is inadequate and will need to be revisited at some time. It will be best revisited if there is transparency about the facts. On fairness between the public and private sectors, it is vital to recognise that in future the vast majority of private sector employees will be retiring with defined contribution, rather than salary-related, pensions. There are today only about 1.7 million employee members of private sector salary-related schemes that are still open to new members. So even if no further scheme closures occur, within a few decades far fewer than 10 per cent—possibly as few as 5 per cent—of the private sector workforce will retire with salary-related pensions paid at any defined retirement age. Over 90 per cent of the private sector workforce will therefore be choosing their retirement age in the light of available annuity rates, which at any given age—the annuity rate at 65 or at 68—will fall as longevity rises. They will also be choosing their retirement in the light of a state pension age that will rise to 68 by 2045 and, I predict, still higher in subsequent decades. It is therefore likely that average retirement ages in the private sector will increase sharply towards 68 and that we will have significant proportions of people by the middle of the century working beyond 68. However, private sector employees working to 68 or even later will observe those civil servants who managed to join their scheme before 1 July 2007 retiring at 60, while even those who join after 2007 will still be retiring, in mid-century, at 65, an age likely by then to be several years below the average age of retirement in the private sector. That will not be perceived as fair, because it is not, and it will be the cause of continual and growing resentment. Then there is the question of internal fairness within the public sector. The Government’s deal has left completely unchanged the position of those who have already joined the Civil Service, or who get in in the next three weeks—I encourage noble Lords, if they are thinking of applying, to get there quickly, as there are only three weeks left—irrespective of their age, even if they are in their early 20s. Such people will continue to enjoy a final-salary-related scheme and a retirement age of 60, while subsequent new entrants will be switched to a retirement age of 65 and an average-salary scheme. These new arrangements will, on average, be slightly less generous, but for high flyers they will be much less generous. In some cases, that will create a very large and quite unsustainable inequality between people doing exactly the same job. A woman presently in the Civil Service who leaves for a number of years, perhaps to have children, but who then rejoins, could find herself at the age of 40 doing the same job for the same cash salary as a man of the same age, but she will have a retirement age of 65 versus 60 and will be on an average-salary scheme instead of a final-salary scheme. As a result, it is quite possible that her total remuneration package—salary and pension combined—could in some cases be worth as much as 10 per cent less than that of the man alongside whom she is working. What will that woman do? She may well try to sue for gender discrimination and, whatever the legal resolution, in fairness, she will have a case. Or she will make absolutely sure that she takes a lengthy leave of absence rather than losing her grandfathered status within the existing scheme. But if she does that, the Government’s assumptions about the savings that will result as people migrate from the more generous to the less generous scheme will become unsound. I know that what the Government and unions say in response is that this grandfathering of existing members’ rights is exactly what the private sector has done. It has closed defined benefit schemes to new members but kept them open with unchanged generosity to existing employees. That is indeed what the private sector has predominantly done, but it is highly regrettable. It is creating, within companies, a two-tier workforce, which I think will be challenged in the private sector, as in the public sector, as discriminatory. The danger of that discrimination is likely to be resolved in many firms by the total closure of the defined benefit scheme, even to existing members. I know companies in which discussions are taking place about the unsustainability of the discrimination and the fact that it can be resolved only by closing the scheme to new accruals as well as to new members. The fact that the private sector has made unfair decisions that have defended existing employees at the expense of the generality of all employees and of new employees is, frankly, a lousy basis on which to seek to justify the same unfair approach in the public sector. Finally, I turn to the cost to taxpayers. During the Pensions Commission’s work, there were extensive and robust debates about whether society could afford to devote another 1.5 per cent of GDP to ensure adequate pensions for the 100 per cent of the population who depend, to different degrees, on the basic state pension. At the same time, in the 2004 Long-term Public Finance Report, the Government issued estimates showing that, even after their intended reforms but before the impact of latest life expectancy increases, which we knew were still pending, the cost of unfunded public sector pensions was likely to rise from 1.5 per cent to 2.3 per cent of GDP by 2033. That is an increase of 0.8 per cent of GDP, going to the 10 per cent or so of the population who are members of the unfunded public schemes. The Treasury appeared simply to accept that increase at the time, with none of the legitimate robust challenge that was directed towards the commission’s state pension proposals. The estimate of 2.3 per cent in 2033 has been revised down, in the latest 2006 Long-term Public Finance Report, to 2 per cent in 2035. That is still a significant increase from today’s 1.5 per cent, but less of an increase, despite the fact that we have new and higher life expectancy assumptions. Given that that is a little surprising, it is worth inquiring how this decreased estimate has resulted. The answer, which is apparent from the Government Actuary’s Department’s technical paper of 26 January this year, is a crucial and startlingly large change in GAD’s assumption about the percentage of public sector employees who leave employment at any given age. In the 2004 figures, it was assumed that, between the ages of 35 and 40, about 17 per cent of male employees will leave a public sector scheme of which they were a member aged 35. By the 2006 paper, that assumption had gone up to 29 per cent. This is a crucial change in assumptions. When you follow a grandfathering approach to benefits, leaving unchanged the existing arrangements while introducing new, less generous terms for new employees, you need high staff turnover to get cost savings. The higher the staff turnover, the greater the savings and the more rapidly they are achieved. However, the very fact of grandfathering the existing terms for existing members creates a very big incentive for employees, if they are sensible, to stay put or at least to maintain their formal employment status during extended leaves of absence. Therefore, the Government are assuming much higher staff turnover rates than before while simultaneously putting in place a big disincentive to staff turnover. I am frankly unconvinced that those assumptions are safe. I am also not convinced by the second key assumption in GAD’s technical paper that the number of public sector workers will stay constant perpetually after 2008. If we had a stable population, that might be a reasonable assumption, but GAD’s central forecast for the UK’s population, on which all the other assumptions in the Long-term Public Finance Report build, is that it will grow from 60 million today to 69.5 million by 2057, which is an increase of about 16 per cent. If you combine that population forecast with flat public employee numbers, that implies that by mid-century we shall have about 14 per cent fewer policemen per head of population, as well as 14 per cent fewer doctors, teachers and nurses per person to be cared for and taught, which sounds to me like a somewhat unsafe assumption. There are strong reasons for believing that the issues of public sector pensions—their fairness relative to the private sector, their internal fairness and their future affordability—have not been subject to the rigorous analysis and open public debate that these issues deserve and to which the state pension proposals have been subject. They should be subject to that analysis and debate; if they are not, my fear is that public sector defined benefit pensions will one day go the way of their private sector equivalents, towards abolition rather than sensible reform. Because I strongly believe that sensible reform would be much better than abolition, I urge the Government to take seriously the spirit of this amendment.
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Baroness Turner of CamdenI want only to make a very brief intervention. It seems to me that there would be difficulty with the unions as far as…
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Baroness Turner of CamdenLabour
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I want only to make a very brief intervention. It seems to me that there would be difficulty with the unions as far as this amendment is concerned, because public sector pensions generally speaking are the result of collective bargaining with the relevant unions. Moreover, for many years unions have traditionally regarded pension provision as deferred pay, and I am sure that there would be opposition to the notion of a special commission designed to look at and, presumably, to report on public sector pensions. A lot has been said about the private sector. Of course, it is not so very long ago that the private sector produced very good pensions. We used to be very proud of our occupational pension arrangements in this country compared with those abroad, because we felt that we had a very good scheme—and many private firms offered very good pension provision. Unfortunately, as we know, for all sorts of reasons that is no longer the situation, but it does not seem to me that this requires a new commission specifically to look at public sector pensions when bargaining with unions has already taken place to produce the situation that we now have. I hope that the Government will not feel that it is appropriate to enter into the kind of arrangements suggested in this amendment.
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Lord FowlerI agree entirely—or at least substantially—with what the noble Lord, Lord Turner, said. I do not entirely agree with hi…
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Lord FowlerCrossbench
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I agree entirely—or at least substantially—with what the noble Lord, Lord Turner, said. I do not entirely agree with his description of what is happening in the private sector, because a number of final-salary schemes are being closed not only for future entrants but for existing entrants. That does not make the position any better, but it is the fact with regard to quite a number of private sector schemes. But I essentially agree with him that if you are going to have, as you obviously must have, arrangements for the public sector, those arrangements have to be seen as reasonable and fair. As far as I and many others are concerned—I do not want to repeat all the noble Lord’s arguments—the present arrangements are not seen in that light. The Government’s U-turn on this issue did them no credit whatever. We have a specific proposition in this amendment—that there should be an Independent Public Sector Pensions Commission. I agree with the principle and with what the noble Lords, Lord Turner and Lord Oakeshott, said. However, I cannot see the point of having two commissions: one for the public sector and one for the rest. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, has a further amendment which advocates an Independent Pensions Commission as well as an Independent Public Sector Pensions Commission.
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Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove BayI am sorry if I did not make it clear in my introduction, but I am not proposing to move that amendment. I am asking th…
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Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove BayNon-affiliated
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I am sorry if I did not make it clear in my introduction, but I am not proposing to move that amendment. I am asking the Committee to support a specific public sector commission only.
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Lord FowlerThat makes the position worse rather than better. I was hoping that the noble Lord was going to say that he would incor…
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Lord FowlerCrossbench
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That makes the position worse rather than better. I was hoping that the noble Lord was going to say that he would incorporate the public sector in the general Independent Pensions Commission—that seems the logical thing to do—and to have the public sector and private sector viewed together. I cannot see any reason why we should leave the private sector out of such an examination, rather as the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, said. Although I do not agree, and actually profoundly disagree, with almost everything else she said—she will not be surprised by that—I cannot see any point in having one commission looking at the public sector when we should be looking at the whole range of pensions. Goodness knows, there is enough in that area to be done. Regrettably, although I agree with much of what the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, said, and with even more of what the noble Lord, Lord Turner, said, I could not possibly support this rather narrow proposal to have a commission looking just at the public sector.
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Lord SkelmersdaleI start from the point that I am in total agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott—and indeed with almost everyone…
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Lord SkelmersdaleConservative
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I start from the point that I am in total agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott—and indeed with almost everyone who has spoken in this short debate, with the exception of the noble Baroness, Lady Turner—that public sector pensions need to be reformed. We all know that. We know what the problem is, and the noble Lord, Lord Turner, has spoken of it. There is no justification for the imbalance that already exists and will, as the noble Lord, Lord Turner, just said, continue to exist between the private sector and the public sector, with the former having to bear all the costs and the latter continuing to enjoy all the benefits. However, I believe that, since we know the problems and the need—unlike with the invention of a scheme to persuade more people to save for their retirement, where a commission was most certainly necessary—there is now no need for a commission to decide what needs to be done. I believe that a commission would merely lead to unnecessary delay, cost and bureaucracy, and yet more public sector employees going on to the payroll with all the pension additions. The noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, made great play of one of my honourable friends in another place. It is true that my party did support this amendment, or something very similar to it in principle, as the Bill passed through another place. Since then, we have reconsidered our position, which is why I have been unable to give the amendment my total support today. I do not want to go any further except to say that, if only one word is to be taken away from today’s debate, it is a word uttered by the noble Lord, Lord Turner—that we need “transparency” on this issue. But, again, I do not think that a commission is the way to give it to us.
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Baroness Hollis of HeighamI am now completely baffled. What does the noble Lord’s party now wish to see happen, if anything?
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Baroness Hollis of HeighamLabour
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I am now completely baffled. What does the noble Lord’s party now wish to see happen, if anything?
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Lord SkelmersdaleIt wants to see the Government take the bull by the horns and reform public sector pensions, but we no longer believe t…
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Lord SkelmersdaleConservative
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It wants to see the Government take the bull by the horns and reform public sector pensions, but we no longer believe that a commission is necessary to achieve that objective.
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Lord McKenzie of LutonI thank everyone who participated in the debate. Like the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, I do not believe that there is…
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Lord McKenzie of LutonLabour
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I thank everyone who participated in the debate. Like the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, I do not believe that there is a need for a commission, but not necessarily for the reasons that he gave. I am not sure that I understood what he meant by taking the bull by the horns and where that would lead us. Perhaps that will be clarified at some stage. I make it clear that all major public service pension schemes have been under review since the 2002 pensions Green Paper. As a result of that review, reforms in these schemes are now well under way. These reforms fully ensure the long-term sustainability of the schemes. Agreement on the teachers’ pension scheme was reached with the teaching unions in May 2006 on a set of reform proposals, and a new scheme has been operating since January 2007. Cost sharing with employees and capping of employer contribution rates form a part of the scheme’s regulatory framework. NHS employers expect to implement new arrangements by 2008. As we heard, the Cabinet Office has announced that the new Civil Service scheme will be implemented from July 2007. Reforms in the NHS, teachers and Civil Service pension schemes will also introduce mechanisms that will ensure that any future increases in costs will be shared fairly between employers and employees. In addition, there will be an upper limit on the cost to the taxpayer, should costs increase. Reform is also well under way or has been completed in other public service schemes. The local government pension scheme announced a series of reforms in November last year, and new arrangements for that scheme are expected to be in place in 2008. New schemes for the Armed Forces, police officers and firefighters have already been introduced. Establishing an independent commission to report on public sector pension schemes would change the context of negotiations currently under way and in doing so—I think that the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, made this point—could delay the benefits resulting from the reforms. Public sector pension schemes are monitored regularly through built-in mechanisms such as the annual resource accounts as well as scheme valuation reports. These reports are prepared by professional actuaries and are based on long-term assumptions that are reviewed and updated periodically. Alongside these reviews the Government annually evaluate the financial sustainability of spending on public service pensions in the long-term public finance report—we heard about that from the noble Lord, Lord Turner—published by the Treasury. The latest report, published in December 2006, and the previous report in 2005 make it clear that the long-term spending on public service pensions is entirely affordable and sustainable. The increase has gone from 1.5 to 2 per cent. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Turner, mentioned that figure. The Government actuary’s projections on staff withdrawal rates are well within sensible assumptions. The noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, said that the provision was not affordable. I contest that; I believe that it is. The judges were mentioned, of course, but we should focus on the fact that average public sector pensions are just over £6,000 a year. That is not such huge largesse that people in the public sector can retire to a life of luxury. I very much agree with my noble friend Lady Turner that they are seen as part of deferred pay arrangements. Nobody was shouting how unfair it was when public sector pay was not insignificantly below private sector equivalents and was made up with pension arrangements. We did not hear cries of unfairness and unsustainability in those circumstances. The noble Lord, Lord Turner, said that the Government should take these matters seriously. Of course, we should, and we do. As regards what is reasonable, the long-term projections show that we can meet the cost of the revised arrangements that have been entered into. It is right that what has happened to some of the public sector schemes mirrors exactly what has happened in the private sector. You cannot wipe away everything that has gone before and build a system from scratch that you say is equitable from now on in. I do not believe that a commission would serve any good purpose. It would hold up the residual negotiations that are still under way. They are serious negotiations, looking not only at the change of the date of pension age of members of those schemes but at cost capping, cost sharing and putting limits on the extent to which the employer will have to fund future increases. It is the right way to proceed. The Government have focused on it, and we are tackling it. A commission would only muddy the waters and hold things up. There is a risk that it would become a forum in which a rather pejorative debate would take place with attempts to say that public sector employees were not entitled to decent pensions. We should want Government employees, whether they be doctors, nurses, policemen or whatever, to have decent pay arrangements and decent pension arrangements, subject to affordability, and that is the deal under way.
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Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove BayI thank the noble Lord, Lord Turner, for his support and for his excellent analysis of the problem. I would be absolute…
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Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove BayNon-affiliated
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I thank the noble Lord, Lord Turner, for his support and for his excellent analysis of the problem. I would be absolutely delighted if he were to take up the poisoned chalice again, although I am not expecting him to do so. I particularly enjoyed his remarks about the Treasury’s legitimate robust challenge to his proposals. He put in a very robust challenge to its hopelessly optimistic assumptions about public sector leaving rates. We will return to that, and we will no doubt question Ministers in considerable detail about that very optimistic assumption that he has now revealed. The answer to other speakers, particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, and the noble Lords, Lord Fowler and Lord Skelmersdale, on why we want to do just this one, if you like—the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, called it narrow, but I would call it focused—is that the rest of the landscape has been done. The main Turner commission was able to look at basically everything apart from public sector pensions, so this is the essential gap. We want to get an independent commission that will have as a substantial part of its work looking at the public affordability of public sector pensions, which we all agree on this side of the Committee is a major problem. I am a realist; because the Conservatives in the other place made a very good case, I thought it was worth stressing what they had said. I look forward to further discussion before Report, and I hope that we can find between us the basis of an independent commission that carries wider support in the Committee than my amendment does. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
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Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Baymoved Amendment No. 138:
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Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove BayNon-affiliated
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moved Amendment No. 138:
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Lord Howarth of NewportI will speak to Amendment No. 140. All the amendments in the group point in the same direction. In his winding-up speec…
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Lord Howarth of NewportLabour
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I will speak to Amendment No. 140. All the amendments in the group point in the same direction. In his winding-up speech at Second Reading, the Minister said: “The whole package of reforms is based on the fact that people need clarity and certainty about the future in order to plan and save for retirement. A standing pensions commission would undermine this by creating a vehicle for permanent re-examination of the framework and of policy and would be an unnecessary and expensive quango with little to do in the short to medium term. We will carry out periodic reviews drawing on a range of independent expert advice”.—[Official Report, 14/5/07; cols. 89-90.] In those words, he somewhat elaborated on the brief dismissal of the proposition in paragraph 2.52 of the White Paper. I hope that the Government will think again about their position on this. The future is inevitably unclear and uncertain. Inescapably, changes to policy will have to be made from time to time. If you put pensions policy on autopilot, you will run into turbulence. That will be uncomfortable and, indeed, dangerous. My noble friend wants to continue the pattern of the past, with officials commissioning masses of research, studying the reports of the professional institutes and think tanks and quietly advising Ministers. The difficulty with that arrangement was that it did not work well enough. The Pensions Commission stated on page 42 of its final report: “British pension policy for decades has been bedevilled by a lack of continuity”. Some courageous and good decisions were taken, but too many bad decisions were taken or decisions shirked. Governments thought that they had got it right and then found that they had not. Moreover, arcane discussion among professionals and officials leftthe public poorly informed, and the quality of public debate was inadequate. It was too easy for governments to fudge and prevaricate, to take the line of least resistance and to base their policy on comforting assumptions. The noble Lord, Lord Turner of Ecchinswell, provided a recent instance of that in his contribution to the previous debate. The reality that the Government must face is that, after the past 30 years, the public do not trust government on pensions; hence the sarcasm in the title of the Parliamentary Ombudsman’s report, Trusting in the Pensions Promise. The second report of the Pensions Commission, under the heading “Securing long-term sustainability and consensus”, stated: “The effectiveness of the UK’s present pension system, both state and private, is undermined by low levels of understanding and trust. Many people do not understand what the state pension system will deliver: many do not believe that the present state promise will be maintained and many do not trust the financial services industry to sell good value products”. The report added: “These problems have arisen because of: Multiple past changes to the state pensions system … which aimed to reduce the generosity of future promises but in a non-transparent fashion … The failure to explain openly the challenges and implications of changing demography … People intuitively grasp that the state is going to do less for them, but neither understand nor trust the precise plan …The mis-selling scandals of the 1990s, which in return reflected a misguided attempt to extend personal pensions to segments of the market where the economics only appeared to work in periods of exceptional capital return”. So policies of hugger-mugger and ad hoc-ery will not do. If we are to build trust, we will need openness and independence. The Pensions Commission has been a success and has started to construct public confidence. The facts and the issues were plainly laid out by the commission, commentators and the public have become seriously interested, and the quality of the analysis and the good sense of the recommendations have helped us move towards consensus. That has made it possible for the Government to grasp nettles and take far-sighted decisions. We should continue with this successful model. We should have a standing pensions commission. Its role would be to keep the evidence under systematic review and to publish the evidence at sensible intervals, with thoughts as to its implications. That would regularly renew responsible public engagement, reassure a sceptical public to the extent that they found that policy was set fair and prepare the public and the political system in good time for modifications of policy, as and when the need for that became evident. Such reviews would be helpful to all of us intellectually and could only be of help to the Government politically. They would be analogous to the quarterly inflation reports produced by the Bank of England. Far from being, in the words of my noble friend the Minister, “an unnecessary and expensive quango”, a standing pensions commission is a necessary means to create trust and would be very good value for money. To decry such a body as a quango is not an argument but a rhetorical tactic. Indeed, quangos and boards of trustees are means of enlisting very able and well qualified people of the calibre of the noble Lord, Lord Turner of Ecchinswell, Professor Hills and Ms Drake to serve the public interest at a very modest cost. Whatever the cost of the Pensions Commission so far—perhaps the Minister will tell us what the figure is—the cost of getting policy wrong, as has happened so often in the past, will be incomparably greater. What was the cost to public expenditure, the pensions industry, the economy and, most important, to savers of the twists, turns, contrivances and errors of policy of past years? There were the costs of mis-selling; of Maxwell, the leaflets, the collapse of ASW and other schemes and of the financial assistance scheme, compounded by the recommendations of the ombudsman and the ruling of the court. There was also the implosion of defined benefits schemes, the collapse of Equitable Life and people being forced back on to social security. What have been the costs of a system so complicated that people could not understand it and failed to save enough? What have been the costs of a system whereby, until pension credit, the poor were penalised through the benefits system for their savings, while the rich were rewarded for theirs at the expense of the Exchequer via tax relief? Do not let us stumble on like that in future decades. If we had had a standing pensions commission 30 years ago, vast amounts of money and misery would have been saved. If we had a standing pensions commission in the next 30 years, it would be a very worthwhile investment. It would routinely assemble and publish information on the relevant issues for both the public and the private pension sectors—the whole array—as I believe is right. What would be the key issues and the terms of reference? I shall not go into detail. The final report of the Pensions Commission of the noble Lord, Lord Turner, made one set of suggestions—at figure 18 on page 43—and in several appendices in his second report the noble Lord spelt out the data requirements. The White Paper suggests, at paragraph 340, what the recurring topics might be for its private reviews. The NAPF, in supporting the thrust of the amendments, has suggested simple terms of reference to monitor the adequacy and sustainability of the pensions system. Amendment No. 140 offers some suggestions; Amendment No. 142 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, which seems to me to be similar in purport, offers a variant. That can be debated, but the range of data and issues that we would expect a pensions commission to keep under review is evident. The regular publication of such reports, together with the requirement that the Government should publish their response, would, I believe, produce immense benefits. It would promote public understanding and responsible attitudes, and it would help to engage the Government as a whole—the Treasury, the DTI and, indeed, the DfES and the Department of Health, alongside the DWP—in a fuller, more intelligent and more coherent response. The policy on pensions is not just relevant to security in retirement but crucial for the health of the financial markets and for the investment that should create prosperity for everyone throughout life. The reports would make it much harder for the Government to prevaricate, and they would improve public confidence in pensions. I believe that if we had a standing pensions commission in the future, we would then be likely, instead of unlikely, to have coherent, timely and far-sighted policy for pensions.
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Lord FowlerI strongly agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, has just said. I speak to Amendment No. 142 but it is very sim…
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Lord FowlerCrossbench
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I strongly agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, has just said. I speak to Amendment No. 142 but it is very similar in intent to Amendment No. 140. I want to take up one point that the noble Lord made: the Government should understand that it is entirely in their interests that they do this. It is not just in the interests of the public but very much in the interests of the Government—and I say to my own Front Bench, any Government—to support this kind of amendment. There are three models of a pensions commission in the showroom at present and a fourth has been driven up by the National Association of Pension Funds, which, in principle, supports the proposal that we are putting forward. There is the model of the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, which he spoke about briefly but which, frankly, is a bit of an old banger in that it self-evidently has some parts missing. That is because, so far as I can see, the noble Lord believes in building several models rather than just one and the result is that the vehicle is not complete. Then there are the two models suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, and me. I say without fear of serious contradiction that these are much superior in that both have engines, which is normally regarded as important in car building, and allow the commission to look at all the issues regarding pensions. Frankly, I do not mind which of the amendments is taken and accepted by the Government—which I know they will. I joke, of course, as I know that they will not. We have both self-evidently gone to the Turner report for our inspiration. I should point out that the National Association of Pension Funds, which has come out in favour of our proposals, has supported my proposal for triennial reviews, so perhaps I get my nose ahead a wee bit on that. As the Turner report makes clear, there are important reasons for keeping this area under independent review. It is on that point that I am very serious. I have two reasons for that. First, many of the errors surrounding pensions legislation occur not because the legislation has not been reviewed as it goes through Parliament. Often it has been reviewed very thoroughly indeed; committees have done their work and Ministers have given their undertakings. The fact is that that work and those undertakings have simply not been observed. That is the fact of the matter. I remember a case of my own, to which the noble Lord referred in passing, when my Minister of State—not unknown—one John Major, gave the clearest undertaking that publicity would be given to a particular change. No publicity was given. We had long since left the department at that time. I went back to see the Permanent Secretary of what was then the Department of Social Security, whose first words were, “The fault is entirely down to this department and the Civil Service”. As it happened, Ministers, as is their right, took responsibility, but the position was that no papers ever went to the Ministers involved. The fault lay with a number of civil servants who had been charged to put the policy into effect and had not done so. Errors occur among Ministers and civil servants, so how can that be avoided? It is not too difficult, I would suggest. You have post-legislative scrutiny and a process by which somebody goes through the legislation not to agree or disagree with it, but simply to check that its intention has been and is being put into effect. If you did that, you would avoid a number of mistakes that have been made over the past 10, 20 or 30 years. Secondly, this is perhaps the most cost-effective measure in this legislation. It would avoid mistakes that could cost literally millions of pounds to put right. This Government know all about that; my Government—if I can put it that way—know all about it as well. I cannot imagine that anyone would be foolish enough to argue that this will cost too much. It would be one of the best investments that the Government have made as it would prevent loss of money and errors occurring. In addition to what I would describe as post-legislative scrutiny, the commission has other important duties such as looking at the latest trends in private pension spending and considering the affordability of public sector pensions. That is why I think it is so important to the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, that one somehow finds a means whereby one can put under the same umbrella the number of very important issues that need to be kept under review in pensions. It would be a mistake if we were simply to include one of those issues, and we would not carry the House. However, if we were to include a number of them, there would be more prospect of doing so. In addition, the ability to examine the issues that are considered urgent, which is paragraph (e) in my amendment, would certainly include the progress of legislation that has recently been passed.
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Lord SkelmersdaleMy noble friend Lord Fowler likened this group of three amendments to three cars. He described the first as an old bang…
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Lord SkelmersdaleConservative
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My noble friend Lord Fowler likened this group of three amendments to three cars. He described the first as an old banger. I would describe the second as a left-hand drive. Funnily enough, as I passed through Paddington station this morning, I noticed that a car was being raffled. On closer inspection, it was left-hand drive, so I did not enter the raffle because I did not think it would be much good to me. The third car—the amendment tabled by my noble friend—I could drive, in part because I believe that one of the things that we have done well in recent years is pre-legislative scrutiny. I agree with my noble friend that one of the things we have always done badly is post-legislative scrutiny. However, I am not sure that this is a job for a commission, and, anyway, the job should be very much wider than just this Bill. Part of these amendments cover an amendment that I tabled, which requires regular reports on changes in life expectancy, and I appreciated the support that I got from around the House—with the sole exception, of course, of the Front Bench opposite, but that is only to be expected on occasions such as this. I am afraid that, as far as matters of detail are concerned, that is as far as I am prepared to go at the moment. I described the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, as a left-hand drive car. That amendment concerns me because it presupposes that there will be frequent changes in the pensions system, which will do nothing to restore public confidence in Government policy. Incidentally, did the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, not refer to it as “flying on auto-pilot”? The Minister will not like that remark. We do not want to make an already complex system seem even less accessible by potentially frequent changes. We have already had a lot of complicated amendments to pensions law, and I fear that a permanent commission specifically tasked with finding yet more ways of tweaking pensions would be counterproductive. I fear that I cannot go any further at this moment.
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Lord McKenzie of LutonThis has been an interesting debate. Perhaps I should start by wishing my noble friend Lord Howarth a very happy birthd…
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Lord McKenzie of LutonLabour
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This has been an interesting debate. Perhaps I should start by wishing my noble friend Lord Howarth a very happy birthday—if my Guardian reading is correct. I hope that he will not mind if I do not wish him many happy returns on one particular of his amendment; but, subject only to that, I hope that he has a good day. The debate has given us the opportunity to debate an issue of some importance. It allows me once again to pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Turner, and his work on the Pensions Commission. We are indebted to him and his colleagues, whose authoritative analysis of the challenges confronting our pension system has provided the foundation for broad consensus on the way forward. In particular, it has paved the way for the difficult decision to increase the state pension age as the necessary trade-off for the restoration of the links to earnings. My noble friend Lady Hollis reminded us at Second Reading that several of my predecessors have promised enduring pension settlements, only to see their reforms overhauled a few years later. I do not claim that, once these two Bills have made it to the statute book, we can hang up our pension hats for good, but I believe that these proposals, which substantially implement the recommendations of the Pensions Commission, set a course that will stand the test of time. The Pensions Commission was set up to undertake a specific task. That job is now done. However, noble Lords seem to be proposing the setting-up of a permanent body to keep the settlement under perpetual review. The advocates of that proposal are, in essence, saying that that is needed because no one trusts the Government. My noble friend Lord Howarth made that point specifically. In my view, the creation of such a body at the very point when the first of these measures is implemented would undermine confidence in the reforms. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, was edging towards that conclusion. What people want is clarity and certainty about the future, to plan and save for retirement. I can only restate our agreement with the rationale behind the amendments and repeat that any disagreement rests solely on the question of how best those shared aims can be achieved. First, there is the question of transparency. No one should doubt our commitment to full and open consultation and debate on the efficacy of our policy. We have demonstrated that during the passage of the Bill. The DWP and the Office for National Statistics already regularly publish a wide range of statistics on pensioner incomes, savings, life expectancy and demography. In addition, the DWP publishes a large number of research reports each year, so a wide range of data is available to external researchers who want to probe further. We agree that the evidence on which we based our reforms will need to be kept under review. We have already set in train a programme of work to develop an evidence base, in consultation with a range of stakeholders, which could underpin future evaluation of our reforms. The first of three workshops took place last week, involving academics and pensions experts. The second, planned for this week, will involve representatives from key stakeholder organisations. We have also invited opposition spokesmen and the chairman of the Work and Pensions Select Committee. The final workshop, also this week, will involve analysts from a number of government departments. Following that consultation, we will publish a strategy document later this year on how we propose to build and maintain a credible evidence base, which will support future policy considerations across a range of issues. That will ensure that policies are kept under review in the light of sound evidence. We are committed to keeping our pensions policies under review; let me be clear about that. I do not think it controversial to assume that any future Government would do the same. We are debating method, not principle. Let me say something about some of the specific suggestions for the work of an independent commission. The amendment proposes the annual publication of gender, carer and state pension coverage impact assessments. The Government’s commitment to addressing gender issues has been integral to our development of pension reform. In November 2005, the DWP published a report on women and pensions that analysed women’s pension position and the major influences on women’s retirement incomes. This was part of the evidence used to develop proposals for pension reform, in which fair outcomes for women and carers were a key objective. More recently, as we discussed earlier, we published a detailed gender analysis of the measures in the Bill, and we plan to undertake gender analysis to accompany further legislation on personal accounts. The noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, also proposes the production of information on possible withdrawal rates. This would not provide any meaningful information on which people can base their financial decisions. Individual circumstances will vary, and projections will depend on a number of variables and assumptions. We already regularly produce comprehensive pension credit data, and will continue to do so for operational and planning purposes. I therefore conclude that the independent commission proposed in the amendments is not necessary to achieve transparency for the future review of pensions policy and the evidence that should inform it. On the need to maintain consensus, we decided not to institute a permanent pensions commission precisely to avoid destabilising the consensus that has so recently been achieved. As we have said, our preferred approach is to carry out periodic reviews of the impact of the reforms, drawing on independent advice and based on robust evidence. This approach has the added merit of leaving it to future Administrations to decide exactly what should be reviewed in the future and when it should be reviewed. So although I share the noble Lords’ concerns, the amendments are unnecessary for achieving the transparency that we all seek in these important matters, and I urge them not to press them.
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Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove BayI am sorry that noble Lords do not want to buy the exact car that I have in mind. None the less, the noble Lords, Lord…
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Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove BayNon-affiliated
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I am sorry that noble Lords do not want to buy the exact car that I have in mind. None the less, the noble Lords, Lord Howarth and Lord Fowler, both made sensible proposals. In all these things, a family has to compromise and find a car that suits everyone. I am not sure at this stage whether the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, is interested in a car at all, but I live in hope. Obviously the garage is closing up now, but I very much hope, indeed believe, that we will return to this on Report and will find cross-party consensus on a form of independent commission that will be practical, workable and worthwhile and that will continue the good work that the Turner commission has started. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
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Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Baymoved Amendment No. 139:
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Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove BayNon-affiliated
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moved Amendment No. 139:
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Lord Howarth of NewportIt would be very helpful to have a report such as the noble Lord has proposed, because it might help to focus our atten…
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Lord Howarth of NewportLabour
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It would be very helpful to have a report such as the noble Lord has proposed, because it might help to focus our attention on two issues. He has already sketched the first issue; namely, the extraordinary disproportion in how tax relief favours the wealthiest in society. I do not know exactly what the figures are, although I suggested at Second Reading, based on briefing that I had read, that 5 per cent to 10 per cent of the wealthiest individuals in the country enjoyed a benefit of 50 per cent of available tax relief. If the totality of that tax relief is creeping up towards £18 billion, this Labour Government are pumping £9 billion a year of tax relief towards the best-off people, which seems a very odd policy for a Labour Government to pursue. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Turner of Ecchinswell, explained in the Pension’s Commission’s report that so long as defined-benefit schemes loom large in the pensions firmament, there are significant technical problems about doing anything very much about this. Since we see that defined benefit schemes are looming smaller and smaller, day by day, I hope that the day will not be long distant when the Government will feel able to address themselves to this. If we were to replace tax relief with a system of grants, it would be possible for the Government to exercise flexibility and to target incentives to save at people on much more modest incomes, which would surely be desirable, less wasteful and more just. The other issue that such a report might highlight would be that which my noble friend was talking about in a debate at the beginning of these Committee proceedings when he replied to an amendment proposed by my noble friend Lady Hollis. The amendment proposed that people should be enabled to buy up to nine extra years on their basic state pension at a late stage in their working life. As far as I could understand what my noble friend was saying, he explained that the Government had difficulties about this because of cash flow. They did not find it unacceptable to forego those pension contributions much earlier in the individual’s working history and said that it would not be right for people to be able to bunch their contributions towards the end of their working lives. This treatment of pension opportunity for people on very modest earnings seems strikingly at odds with the Government’s treatment of people on high earnings. The Government seem to be entirely happy that people wishing to make very large contributions in the late stages of their working lives to private pension schemes should be able to do so to secure tax relief at 40 per cent. Their commitment is fiscally quite open-ended. While there are very generous outside limits on what an individual can contribute—the amounts are massive—there is no limit on the number of people who may be eligible to do that. It depends on who comes along and wants to do so. I would be grateful if my noble friend could offer any reflections on that in his concluding remarks. It is one more illustration of how independent reports from time to time can help to get us all focused and anchored to formulate the issues with which we ought to be concerned, and precipitate us into doing something about them.
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Lord SkelmersdaleWe have already debated the unfortunate effect that the current system of pension credit is having on a growing proport…
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Lord SkelmersdaleConservative
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We have already debated the unfortunate effect that the current system of pension credit is having on a growing proportion of the public, so what worries me about this amendment is proposed paragraph (d) because it looks towards more means-testing and seems entirely the wrong way forward. A few moments ago I described myself as an unpaid cynic, and I am going to be cynical now. I wonder whether the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, has tabled this amendment to check up on his party’s interesting new tax policy of a single basic rate of income tax achieved by abolishing the tax relief on pension contributions on higher earnings, and how that will affect pensions. Rather like the Chancellor, the Liberal Democrats have already been told, though unlike the Chancellor they admit, that the benefits of saving linked to a pension for high-rate taxpayers will be reduced. The one thing that has been crystal clear in our discussions on the Bill is that it is all about increasing savings towards retirement, not reducing them. As I understand it, that is exactly what this amendment would do, and I cannot support it on that basis.
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Lord McKenzie of LutonI thank the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, for raising the issue of pension tax relief, which is always an interesting sub…
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Lord McKenzie of LutonLabour
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I thank the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, for raising the issue of pension tax relief, which is always an interesting subject. It was raised in Committee in another place, and as my honourable friend the Minister of State for Pension Reform said, it is a matter for the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Furthermore, the tax structures in this country are matters for the other place, not your Lordships’ House. Noble Lords know that the Government already publish estimates of the annual cost of tax relief on private pensions. The Treasury publishes alongside the annual Pre-Budget Report a tax ready-reckoner that provides an estimate of the recorded costs of pension tax relief. It also publishes a table of the estimated costs of the major structural tax relief alongside the Budget. Producing a five-year projection of the annual cost of tax relief on pension savings would require firm assumptions about both tax policy and future savings behaviour, including any changes in savings behaviour, and it would prejudge key annual Budget decisions on tax thresholds and rates. Whoever the Government of the day, such decisions are rightly a matter for the Chancellor of the Exchequer. This amendment would create unnecessary duplication across Whitehall. I can understand the noble Lord’s wish to evaluate the current system. He will know that the Pensions Commission considered this issue and did not recommend changes to the overall system of tax relief. The commission felt that to do so would create huge implementation complexities, and it would be extremely difficult to get rid of any existing inequalities without introducing other new ones. Providing estimates of the cost of tax relief on contributions to approved pension funds by decile and income band would require better information on the income distribution of those contributing to occupational schemes. Such analysis cannot therefore be sufficiently robust to provide detailed distributional information on pension relief. I should stress that tax reform has already taken place. I hesitate to mention the “A” word because I know that the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, will chastise me for doing so, but April 2006 witnessed the introduction of a radically simplified tax regime for registered pension schemes. These reforms have resulted in a pensions landscape where individual pension schemes can tailor their benefit packages to suit their sponsors and members, and members will be able to save as much as they wish, when they wish, in order to provide a secure income for themselves in retirement. The pensions industry has broadly welcomed these changes, and I suspect it would be alarmed if further changes were made before the improvements introduced last year had adequately bedded down. I share the aspirations to encourage people to save for a secure retirement, and that is why the Government provide generous tax incentives. The figure that I have for the total value of tax relief for 2006-07 is £16.3 billion. We could have a huge and interesting debate on this, but frankly, at this time of night, that would be difficult. The key point is that it is not appropriate to call for this report. The data would duplicate much of what else is in the system. My noble friend Lord Howarth challenged me on why we allow the current structure of income tax relief for pension contributions. He said that it was inconsistent with our approach for national insurance contributions. The two are not the same: one is dealing with the contributory principle encouraging people to pay as they go along. Tax relief has a different structure which seeks to encourage savings. However, we agree that it is important to ensure that individuals are in a position to make informed choices about working and saving for their retirement. On that, we share common ground with other noble Lords and these measures are likely to have a greater effect on those not saving and not working long enough than reform of the tax incentive structure would have. I therefore urge noble Lords to withdraw the amendment.
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Lord SkelmersdaleBefore the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, decides what to do with the amendment, and I assume that he will withdraw it, I…
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Lord SkelmersdaleConservative
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Before the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, decides what to do with the amendment, and I assume that he will withdraw it, I rise not to chastise the Minister on this occasion but to point out that A-day, to which he referred, had a rather wobbly start but now appears to have settled down.
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Lord McKenzie of LutonI am pleased that it has the noble Lord’s support.
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Lord McKenzie of LutonLabour
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I am pleased that it has the noble Lord’s support.
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Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove BayI thank the Minister for his reply and for making my case when he pointed out that the existing statistics were not rob…
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Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove BayNon-affiliated
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I thank the Minister for his reply and for making my case when he pointed out that the existing statistics were not robust and that we did not know how the distribution of tax relief would help people, particularly in the lower deciles of income. That is exactly the point that we were making. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, for singing from the same hymn sheet as me with his point. The current distribution of pension fund tax relief is very unfair, particularly to women and low earners. To the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, I would say that we are quite open about this being our policy. We believe that we should be concentrating the help on people in lower income groups—the people who are, by and large, not saving for a pension at the moment. Most people in the higher income groups have some form of pension provision and we are trying to move towards building a consensus whereby the available help is focused more on the people who really need it. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. [Amendments Nos. 140 to 142 not moved.]
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Baroness Turner of Camdenmoved Amendment No. 143:
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Baroness Turner of CamdenLabour
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moved Amendment No. 143:
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Baroness Morgan of DrefelinI am delighted that my noble friend feels that she can withdraw the amendment because TPAS has received the reassurance…
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Baroness Morgan of DrefelinLabour
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I am delighted that my noble friend feels that she can withdraw the amendment because TPAS has received the reassurances that it was looking for in another place. We reiterate the assurances already given.
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Baroness Turner of CamdenI beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 23 [Orders and regulations]:
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Baroness Turner of CamdenLabour
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I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 23 [Orders and regulations]:
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Lord McKenzie of Lutonmoved Amendment No. 144:
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Lord McKenzie of LutonLabour
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moved Amendment No. 144:
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Lord McKenzie of Lutonmoved Amendments Nos. 145 to 164:
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Lord McKenzie of LutonLabour
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moved Amendments Nos. 145 to 164:
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Lord Skelmersdalemoved Amendment No. 166:
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Lord SkelmersdaleConservative
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moved Amendment No. 166:
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Lord McKenzie of LutonForgive me. Could the noble Lord just remind me which amendment he is moving?
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Lord McKenzie of LutonLabour
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Forgive me. Could the noble Lord just remind me which amendment he is moving?
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Lord SkelmersdaleAmendment No. 166, which was part of the annuity debate we had on Wednesday. On Question, amendment agreed to. Schedule…
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Lord SkelmersdaleConservative
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Amendment No. 166, which was part of the annuity debate we had on Wednesday. On Question, amendment agreed to. Schedule 7, as amended, agreed to. Clause 26 agreed to. Clause 27 [Northern Ireland]: On Question, Whether Clause 27 shall stand part of the Bill?
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Lord McKenzie of LutonThis clause provides that any Order in Council made for Northern Ireland at paragraph 1(1) of the Schedule to the North…
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Lord McKenzie of LutonLabour
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This clause provides that any Order in Council made for Northern Ireland at paragraph 1(1) of the Schedule to the Northern Ireland Act 2000 making provision corresponding to those in the Bill would not be subject to the affirmative procedure of parliamentary scrutiny, but would instead be subject to the negative procedure. The clause also provides that the Order in Council would be annulled should the Assembly be restored. As is the convention, the intention was that an Order in Council would replicate the provisions of the Pensions Bill for Northern Ireland and maintain the long-standing policy of parity in this area, while maintaining the integrity of the separate Northern Ireland body of law in this field. However, because the Northern Ireland Assembly is now up and running, a provision corresponding to the Bill extending to Northern Ireland reverts to being a matter for the Northern Ireland Executive and the Assembly. The Assembly will therefore enact the legislation corresponding to the Bill after Royal Assent, in accordance with the normal processes governing Orders in Council made under the Northern Ireland Act 2000. Accordingly, I oppose the Question that Clause 27 stand part of the Bill.
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Lord SkelmersdaleAlthough I quite understand why these amendments are necessary, due to recent welcome developments in Northern Ireland,…
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Lord SkelmersdaleConservative
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Although I quite understand why these amendments are necessary, due to recent welcome developments in Northern Ireland, I hope that the Minister will be able to clarify a question to which I ought to know the answer: why do the Government think it necessary to devolve these powers to the Northern Ireland Assembly when they are reserved matters with regard to Scotland and Wales? While I am on my feet, I note that there is no longer any provision on the statute book in the event—unlikely, I hope—of Stormont and devolved government in Northern Ireland breaking down again. Can I be assured that in that event the DWP legislation, particularly pensions legislation, would be swept up in a suitable Northern Ireland Act, of which we have seen so many over recent years? Since this is the last occasion on which either of us will speak, I thank the Minister for his good temper and his courtesy throughout our debates on the Bill. I have not always agreed with him, but very occasionally he has even agreed with me, which is always welcome.
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Lord McKenzie of LutonThe answer to the noble Lord’s question about what would happen if the Assembly did not continue is that there would ne…
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Lord McKenzie of LutonLabour
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The answer to the noble Lord’s question about what would happen if the Assembly did not continue is that there would need to be provision to ensure that the legislation was covered in another way. I shall write to the noble Lord in more detail on that point. I should also say that there are some government amendments here. They are tidying-up references to Clauses 27 and 28 that are no longer needed. Clause 27 negatived. Clause 28 [Extent]:
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Lord McKenzie of Lutonmoved Amendments Nos. 167 and 168:
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Lord McKenzie of LutonLabour
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moved Amendments Nos. 167 and 168:
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Lord McKenzie of LutonI should have responded earlier to the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale. I thank him, his colleagues and all noble Lords w…
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Lord McKenzie of LutonLabour
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I should have responded earlier to the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale. I thank him, his colleagues and all noble Lords who have participated in the Committee stage. In the spirit of co-operation, there was some quite fierce debate, but it bodes well for the consensus that underlies the Bill. Clauses 29 and 30 agreed to. House resumed: Bill reported with amendments. House adjourned at 10.06 pm.
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EnactedPensions Act 2007