Lord Freud

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That the Bill be read a second time.

The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Freud) (Con)

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My Lords, over the past 10 years the Government have delivered a number of radical changes to the pensions system that have transformed the way that people can save and access their pension savings.

Among the changes that we have made, we have removed the default retirement age, facilitating fuller working lives, we have made it easier for people to understand their state pension by introducing the new state pension, and by setting the full level at £155.65 and raising the state pension age we have lifted more pensioners out of means testing and put the state pension on a sustainable footing. We have increased private long-term savings by introducing automatic enrolment, and 6.7 million people have already been automatically enrolled into a workplace pension by 257,000 employers. By 2018, we estimate that 10 million workers will be newly saving or saving more into a workplace pension as a result of this change, generating around £17 billion in additional pension saving by 2020. In the summary of its report on automatic enrolment, published in May of this year, the Work and Pensions Select Committee said that so far, automatic enrolment had been a great success and that it had,

“been declared a success by pension providers, employers, trade unions and Government”.

We have also given people greater flexibility in relation to their pensions. The pension freedoms, which came into effect in April 2015, allow over-55 year-olds to access their pension savings more flexibly. HMRC reports that in the first year of pension freedoms, 232,000 individuals accessed a flexible payment. Since April 2016, it has been compulsory for providers to report this information. In the first six months since compulsory reporting was introduced, 243,000 individuals received a flexible payment, with 619,000 payments made in total. The total value of all flexible payments since the introduction of the freedoms is £7.65 billion.

The Bill builds on these changes. Automatic enrolment means that more people are saving into a private pension. The new freedoms mean they have more choice about what they do with their savings than ever before. We need to ensure that the legislative framework is appropriate in the light of these developments. The measures in the Bill will help to protect savers and maintain their confidence in pension savings.

The majority of the Bill focuses on master trust occupational pension schemes, which have become a most popular vehicle into which workers are automatically enrolled, particularly among small and micro-employers. Although these schemes can offer great value for members and employers, we need to act now to make sure they are regulated in the right way.

The schemes are regulated by the Pensions Regulator and occupational pension legislation. However, that legislation was developed mainly with single-employer pension schemes in mind. Master trust schemes have different structures and dynamics, so the Bill introduces a new authorisation regime for them and new powers for the Pensions Regulator to intervene where schemes are at risk of failing.

Master trusts will now have to satisfy the regulator that they meet certain criteria before operating, and schemes must continue to meet the criteria to remain authorised. The criteria respond to specific key risks identified in master trust schemes. They were developed in discussion with the industry and include the kinds of risks that the Financial Conduct Authority regulation addresses in group personal pensions, with which master trust schemes have some similarities.

Trusts will now be required to demonstrate that the persons involved in the scheme are fit and proper, that the scheme is financially sustainable, that the scheme funder meets certain requirements, that the systems and processes relating to the governance and administration of the scheme are sufficient to ensure its effective running, and that the scheme has an adequate continuity strategy.

The Bill covers more detail on each of these criteria, and additional details will be set out in regulations following further consultation with the industry. The authorisation and supervision regime is likely to be commenced in full in 2018. However, the Bill also contains provisions which, on enactment, will have effect back to the day on which this Bill was published, 20 October 2016.

These provisions relate to requirements to notify key events to the Pensions Regulator and constraints on charges levied on, or in respect of, members in circumstances related to key risk events or scheme failure. This is vital for protecting members in the short term and will ensure a backstop is in place until the full regime commences.

We have worked closely with the Pensions Regulator and engaged with the pension industry to see what essential protections are needed, and we believe that the measures in the Bill will provide those protections. The Pensions Regulator, along with many pension providers, has welcomed the introduction of the Bill and these measures, saying that it,

“will drive up standards and give us tough new supervisory powers … ensuring members are better protected and ultimately receive the benefits they expect”.

The Bill will also make a necessary change in relation to the existing legislation on charges. Information gathered by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Pensions Regulator indicates that a significant number of people have pensions in respect of which an early exit charge is applied. Clause 40 will give us the power to override contractual terms which conflict with the regulations. For example, the Government intend to use this, alongside existing powers, to make regulations to introduce a cap that will prevent early exit charges creating a barrier for members of occupational pension schemes wanting to access their pension savings. The FCA is introducing a corresponding cap on early exit charges in personal and stakeholder pension schemes.

The Government also intend to use this power, together with existing legislation, to make regulations preventing commission charges being imposed on members of certain occupational pension schemes where these arise under existing contracts entered into before 6 April 2016. We have already made regulations that prohibit such charges under new contracts agreed after that date. This will fulfil our commitment to ensure that certain pension schemes used for automatic enrolment do not contain member-borne commission payments to advisers. The Government intend to consult on both sets of regulations in the new year.

We are introducing the Bill now because it will, from the day it becomes law, protect consumers by preventing providers winding up an existing master trust while raising charges to cover the costs of doing so.

We are very conscious of the views expressed by this House that the delegated powers in previous Bills have been too wide or there has been a lack of clarity about how the policy will work. I therefore want to explain the approach we have taken to the use of delegated powers in this Bill.

The Bill sets out the key criteria for a master trust to become authorised. It requires that a master trust must satisfy the regulator that it meets these criteria and that it continues to do so on an ongoing basis. It also sets out how the regime itself will operate. However, there are matters more appropriate for secondary legislation that will address the detail of these requirements. We want to make sure that this level of detail caters for different structures and arrangements within existing master trusts, so that the burden of the regime has no disproportionate or unintended effect.

A one-size-fits-all set of requirements could have a disproportionate effect on the market. We believe that the level of detail needed to implement the main requirements, together with the need to make different provision for different cases, is more suitable for secondary legislation. It may be necessary for these detailed requirements to be adapted over time in response to market developments. To that end, we are not seeking a few broad powers; rather, we have woven specific powers into the Bill, targeted on the matters for which they are appropriate, so that it is clear where and for what they will be used.

We have not prepared draft regulations because we intend to consult the industry before making them. The Bill provides sufficient detail to allow your Lordships to scrutinise how the new authorisation and supervision regime will work and for the market to anticipate what the new regime will mean for it. The market has already proved dynamic and we expect that to continue. Therefore, having the appropriate detail in secondary legislation will enable us to adapt to changes and respond to market developments within the constraints of specific regulation-making powers.

The Bill is focused on areas where we believe we need to take immediate action to protect savers, but I know that there is considerable interest and concern about wider pension issues, so I shall touch briefly on why they are not included in the Bill.

I know that some noble Lords had expected to see in the Bill measures relating to guidance bodies. I reassure them that the Government remain committed to ensuring that consumers can access the help they need to make effective financial decisions. The recent consultation on a new delivery model for government-sponsored financial guidance proposed a two-model body, replacing the Money Advice Service with a new, streamlined money guidance body, and bringing together the Pensions Advisory Service and Pension Wise into a new, single pension guidance body. However, several stakeholders questioned, both in formal responses to the consultation and in the wider public debate that the review has provoked, how the two bodies might work together effectively and whether a single delivery body might be more cost effective and provide an improved offer to consumers. After careful consideration, we have agreed to create a single financial guidance body, but we need to do further work to ensure that the right model is delivered, that it works for consumers, and that it has the full support of the financial services, pensions and charity sectors. Reform in this area has not been shelved and we remain committed to restructuring and improving the offer on government-sponsored financial guidance.

A lot of understandable concern has been expressed in many quarters about the impact on employers of defined benefit pension schemes, and the sustainability and security of the defined benefit system. Noble Lords will be aware of high-profile cases in the news, and the ongoing Work and Pensions Select Committee inquiry into the powers of the Pensions Regulator and the Pension Protection Fund to act in cases where schemes are facing difficulty. In addition, the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association, one of the main industry bodies for pension schemes, has set up its own taskforce looking into the sustainability of the defined benefit pensions system.

While we are aware of the many options for change that are being discussed and debated, there is no simple solution on which we are ready to legislate. Despite what noble Lords may read in certain papers, our pensions system is not in imminent danger. None the less, some employers and some schemes are in difficulty, and there are a number of issues on which we want to gather data and consider further. We intend to present a Green Paper on the challenges facing defined benefit pensions in the winter. We should not seek to address those issues ahead of that vital consultation.

Finally, I touch briefly on the changes to the state pension age. While all state pension issues will be outside of the Bill, I know that there is considerable interest and concern about this issue. We have to acknowledge that people are living longer and if we want to carry on having an affordable and sustainable pensions system, it is right that we continue to look at the state pension age. But I reassure noble Lords that we have put arrangements in place. We committed £1 billion to lessen the impact of the state pension changes on those who were affected, so that no one would experience a change of more than 18 months. In fact, 81% of women’s state pension ages will increase by no more than 12 months compared with the previous timetable. Many will benefit from an increase in the new state pension. But let me be quite clear on the Government’s position. Unwinding past decisions would involve younger people having to bear an even greater share of the burden of getting this country back to living within its means. That is not a burden we are prepared to place on them.

The Bill is an important legislative step in ensuring that we provide essential protections for people saving in master trust pension schemes, and in maintaining confidence in pension savings. The market has grown quickly and it is important that we now respond to ensure that this part of the pension market evolves in the right way. We are committed to ensuring that members are protected equally, whatever type of scheme they are in, and the measures proposed in this Bill will provide that protection. I beg to move.

The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Freud) (Con)

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Clause 1 is critical to the Bill. It sets out the scope for the regime, so I welcome these considered amendments, which give us the opportunity to explore this important clause in detail.

We have taken considerable care in defining master trusts and setting the scope for the new authorisation regime. The guiding principles throughout have been twofold: the first is to ensure that members are protected against the risks that arise in these new structures; the second is to ensure that the extent of any regulation is proportionate.

For example, the definition applies to schemes which are open to more than one employer because the level of engagement and involvement of the employers and scale of such a scheme is likely to be very different from that of a single employer scheme or a scheme in which all the employers are part of the same corporate group. It applies only to schemes which offer money purchase benefits because of the risks that the member bears in relation to such benefits, but we have been careful not to create a loophole for schemes which offer mixed benefits—as we will come on to later.

However, we also need to be mindful of the fact that master trusts are a recent development in a rapidly changing pensions landscape, and the master trust market is evolving all the time. A one-size-fits-all regime may not be proportionate, and we therefore need flexibility to be able to respond to the needs and changes. It is for this reason that Clause 39—which we will come to later in Committee—makes provision allowing for the disapplication of some or all provisions of the Bill for certain schemes.

Turning to the specific amendments, my noble friend Lord Flight seeks to exclude from the definition “AVC only” and “relevant centralised” schemes. I have sympathy with his intentions. Many defined benefit schemes offer AVCs for historic reasons and could be considered to be DB schemes to all intents and purposes, but schemes such as this could be excluded from regulation under our powers under Clause 39, and we prefer to use this power rather than to create a list of exemptions in the Bill, allowing time for more detailed consultation with industry about the diverse types of scheme that currently exist.

I put it on record that our intent is to propose such a carve-out. That is: we intend to consult on regulations under Clause 39(1)(b) to disapply some or all of the provisions of the regime for a mixed benefit master trust scheme, where the only money purchase benefits are those related to additional voluntary contributions of non-money purchase members, but we will also be considering carefully the need to avoid creating any avoidance loopholes as we go through that process.

In relation to the relevant centralised schemes, I am concerned that my noble friend’s amendment may go too far. The definition to which he refers is not confined to industry-wide or not-for-profit schemes, and although there may be a case for excluding some such schemes, I am wary of creating a loophole.

Our aim is to protect members from the risks that are particular to master trusts, and these may equally arise in industry-wide schemes. Similarly, although it is true that most master trusts are run for profit, and that this gives rise to certain risks which the regime seeks to protect, it is not this feature alone which determines the nature of master trusts.

I am grateful for the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, and the noble Baroness, Lady Drake. As the noble Lord said, it is a probing amendment to investigate the boundaries of the definition. The amendment would change the definition of master trusts in the Bill and extend it to all schemes which offer money purchase benefits, including those which are used by only a single employer or employers connected to each other.

On the noble Lord’s question of how and when we plan to consult on draft regulations, and indeed on the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, we have worked with the industry and the regulator to establish the key criteria for master trust authorisation. We intend to continue these discussions to develop more detailed policy and secondary legislation. We will follow the published government principles to ensure that consultation is an ongoing process, using the most appropriate forms of communication. The timing of that formal consultation on draft regulations will depend on a number of factors. We anticipate that the initial consultation to inform the regulations may take place in autumn 2017. I hope that that gives the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, some reassurance about the process.

The amendment would extend the scope of the definition and the authorisation regime considerably and would do so in a way that would be disproportionate. To take the example of the scheme starting as a single group employer picking up a non-associated one and moving back and forth, if the scheme is intended to be used for more than one unconnected employer, it is within the scope of the regime. If it starts with only connected employers but takes on an unconnected employer, it will fall within the regime at the point that it takes on the unconnected employer.

Lord Freud

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In practice, one has to be fairly formal about the definition. The noble Lord has drawn up an example of a potential revolving door which I suspect may be in the black swan category. I will take that point away. I need not write to him on it because we will have a chance to come back to it, or I will make sure that we do. He describes a very volatile situation, but I suspect the very existence of a precise regime will tend to stop people doing that kind of thing unnecessarily, or without a very good reason.

On the question of bringing into the regulations schemes that have only one employer, we are currently considering whether some schemes offering decumulation-only benefits have the same rules as some master trusts. Any use of the powers to deal with this issue will clearly be subject to the affirmative procedure. My noble friend Lady Altmann asked whether PPF could be extended; an amendment has been tabled—I think it is Amendment 18—to explore this issue, and we will deal with it when we reach that point.

Much of our debate at Second Reading indicated that there is general acknowledgement that further regulation of master trusts is both desirable and necessary. Master trusts have developed in part in response to the success of the automatic enrolment programme emerging as a different kind of beast to the traditional structures that have existed in the occupational pensions sphere.

There is much to recommend master trusts as the schemes of choice for employers and members. They can drive value for money due to competition in the market and the economies of scale and offer a neat solution for smaller employers, for whom setting up an individual pension scheme for employees would be impractical and burdensome. But these very qualities also give rise to new risks that are not present in single employer defined contribution schemes in the same way. In a single employer scheme, the employer is typically far more closely involved in the running of the scheme and tends to have a more active relationship with the trustees. With master trusts used for automatic enrolment, employer involvement is generally limited to paying over the employer contribution. The different dynamics that exist in master trusts give rise to the need for a different approach to ensure that members are properly protected. These issues do not arise in the same way in single employer or connected employer schemes, and it is for this reason that we have been careful to confine the definition to multi-employer schemes in which the employers are not all connected.

Lord Freud

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At the moment, these schemes would not be within the master trusts legislation. I cannot give a full answer now because I am not sure what other protections there may be for people in this situation, but we will have a chance to come back to this issue again and again and I shall make sure that we have a dialogue on this point later, as we consider the Bill in Committee.

This Bill addresses the risks that arise in master trusts. It is important to remember that these risks are specific to this particular type of structure, and it is therefore important that the definition reflects those structures and does not go wider. This ensures that the regulation in the Bill is a proportionate response to the issues arising. I hope that with these explanations and assurances particularly on the process of consultation, noble Lords are reassured, and I ask them not to press their amendments.

Lord Freud

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We will come on to discussing Clause 39 later, but I think that it will be fairly specific—sorry, no, I think that it will not be specific. It will be general types.

Lord Freud

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Yes, I think that we will come back to that issue—and, if we do not, I shall make sure to write to the noble Lord before the end of the Committee stage.

Lord Freud

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My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord and the noble Baroness for tabling these amendments. Amendments 4, 16 and 26 relate to the question of how non-money purchase benefits in a master trust are dealt with and affected by the new regime, and Amendment 17 raises the question of the appropriate parliamentary procedure for regulations under Clause 8.

I will first deal with the question of non-money purchase benefits, as we have given a great deal of thought to it in developing the Bill. Amendment 4 seeks to amend Clause 1(2) so that the provisions apply to non-money purchase benefits in master trust schemes. Amendment 16 seeks to ensure that the Pensions Regulator does not take account of resources which relate to non-money purchase benefits in assessing whether the scheme has sufficient financial resources.

Amendment 26 seeks to ensure that master trusts set out the protections for non-money purchase benefits in their continuity strategy. Many master trusts will be money purchase schemes—that is, they will provide only money purchase benefits. However, a number provide both money purchase and non-money purchase benefits, and we therefore need to make provision to take account of this. As we have previously discussed, it is important that we do not create a loophole for schemes that offer mixed benefits. However, the policy intent is to specifically address certain risks that apply to members in master trusts related to the nature of the structure and funding of these schemes. These types of risk are managed in different ways in relation to non-money purchase benefits, and it is the risks around money purchase benefits that the Bill is focused on addressing.

Lord Freud

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My Lords, these amendments all concern the resources, financial or otherwise, which will be required to ensure that the Pensions Regulator can implement and operate the master trust authorisation regime.

Amendment 11, tabled by my noble friend Lord Flight, would change the wording of Clause 4 so that subsection (5)(b) reads:

“The Secretary of State may make regulations setting out … any application fee payable to the Pensions Regulator”,

instead of “the” application fee.

The current provision in the Bill does not require the Secretary of State to set an application fee but it is important for the Government to be clear to the industry about their intentions now—and the Government intend to make regulations that specify an application fee. It is also important for the Secretary of State to have the ability to change the application fee in the future. That is one reason for specifying this fee in regulations. The master trust industry is developing, and will continue to do so, as it adapts to the new requirements of this regime. As the industry changes, it is entirely feasible that the cost to the regulator of assessing applications for authorisation may change too.

The fee serves two key purposes. First, it ensures that the Pensions Regulator can recover the costs of processing applications from master trust authorisation without indirectly placing those costs on the wider pensions community it regulates. Without an authorisation fee it would have to recover these costs through the funding provided by the general levy, and this would not be fair given that a large number of the schemes which pay into this levy are not master trust schemes. Secondly, the fee ensures that schemes seeking to become authorised submit carefully considered applications by acting as a deterrent to submitting multiple applications.

As I hope I have explained, it is important to make provisions for regulations to specify an application fee and that the industry is clear that the Government intend to use this power. The Bill as it stands achieves this intent.

Both Amendments 12 and 82 require that a report on the subject of the Pensions Regulator’s resources is laid before the Houses of Parliament before the provisions within Part 1 of the Bill are commenced. Amendment 82 would additionally require that Parliament is presented with a report about the impacts of the master trust authorisation regime. The additional report required by Amendment 82 is described as,

“a comprehensive assessment of the impact of Part 1”.

The other report is,

“a report demonstrating that sufficient resources are available to the Pensions Regulator to carry out the requirements on the Regulator pursuant to”,

this Act. The focus of Amendment 12 is very similar, but it requires that the resources report should address the resources required to conduct the regulator’s functions under Clause 5.

Lord Freud

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One of the things I have committed to do is to go back and think about how we make these regulations in the context of the noble Lord’s own suggestion of perhaps looking at the balance between the affirmative and negative procedures. In that context, the exact way in which the Government decide to present the regulations would clearly change. Regulations made under the negative procedure tend to be less of a set piece, while affirmative regulations do tend to be more of a set piece for obvious reasons. The answer to the noble Lord’s question will depend on our reflections on what we do with his proposition.

The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Freud) (Con)

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My Lords, Amendment 27 would require information on any charge cap to be included in a master trust’s continuity strategy. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, for making it clear that this is a series of probing amendments. I think it makes sense for me to go through what the process is on the continuity strategy.

One of the criteria for a master trust to be authorised by the Pensions Regulator is that it must have an adequate continuity strategy. That strategy is then kept under review on an ongoing basis. A continuity strategy is a document that addresses how the interests of the scheme members will be protected if, in the future, the scheme experiences a triggering event—an event that could put the scheme at risk. The strategy must include a section on the scheme’s levels of administration charges in a manner that will be specified in regulations in due course, as well as any such other information as may be set out in those regulations. Our intention is that the regulations will set out the detail and manner of the information to be provided on the administration charges in the strategy. We want schemes to provide information such as the charge levels per arrangement or fund, any discounts they apply to charge levels and on what basis these discounts are made.

Lord Freud

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I hope that I made it absolutely clear that we will look back at what was actually being charged to ensure that it was an annual effective rate of 0.5%. There is no space to try to get the next 0.25% once a triggering event has happened. You are left at the level at which you have been charging historically, and there will be a way of assessing that rate, which means that both the original amendment and my noble friend’s amendment to it fall away, because there is another method of maintaining the level of charges.

Lord Freud

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I will begin by explaining why it is important that the clause stands part of the Bill, and then I shall set out my thoughts on the proposed change in the parliamentary scrutiny procedure.

Clause 16 addresses one of the requirements that will be placed on a master trust scheme once it has been authorised. One of the great strengths of the authorisation regime is that it is an ongoing system. This means that, in order to continue operating in the market, the Pensions Regulator must remain satisfied that the master trust continues to meet the authorisation criteria. This makes it particularly important for the Pensions Regulator to remain informed about the scheme. Indeed, I hark back to our discussion a little earlier about whether there should be someone to compensate as a last resort. It is really important that we make sure that the Pensions Regulator knows what is happening in schemes. That is one of the key ways in which to make that happen.

The regulator will collect information from authorised master trust schemes on a regular basis through a combination of existing requirements on occupational pension schemes and new requirements on authorised master trust schemes, introduced as part of the Bill. For example, all occupational pension schemes are already required to submit an annual scheme return to the Pensions Regulator and, under Clause 15, master trusts will be required to submit a supervisory return as well. In addition, Clause 14 introduces a requirement on the trustees of master trust schemes to submit the scheme’s annual accounts, and on the scheme funder to submit its accounts to the Pensions Regulator. These returns allow the Pensions Regulator to collect information from schemes on a regular basis in order to determine whether they still meet the authorisation criteria.

This clause provides that the Pensions Regulator must be notified in writing if significant events occur in relation to an authorised master trust scheme. The Secretary of State, following consultation with the industry, will set out in regulations what constitutes “significant events” for the purposes of this clause. These might include, for example, change of scheme trustee, change of scheme administrator, changes to the continuity strategy or changes to the business plan. The Government intend that the events which will be prescribed as significant events will be events of the type which the regulator would need to be made aware of promptly due to the potential impact on the scheme’s authorised status or because they are indicators that support or intervention may be required.

To be clear, the occurrence of a significant event in a master trust scheme will not necessarily affect the ability of the scheme to meet the authorisation criteria. It just may have such an effect or it may be a warning sign. For example, a scheme may have a change of trustee. As the fitness and propriety of a trustee is linked to the authorisation criteria, the Pensions Regulator must be informed of this change so that the new trustee may be assessed against the relevant standards. The new trustee may well meet the required standards, in which case the scheme’s authorisation status will not be affected—but there could be an impact. A civil penalty will apply to a person who fails to comply with this reporting requirement. For that reason, it is important to be as clear as possible about who will be subject to this requirement in the Bill. This clause therefore lists the persons subject to this requirement in subsection (2). Further persons may be listed in regulations.

There is a precedent for this requirement. Section 69 of the Pensions Act 2004 provides that key persons involved in the running of defined benefit occupational pension schemes must report the occurrence of certain events to the Pensions Regulator. That provision was made to warn the Pensions Regulator that such a scheme may require the support of the Pension Protection Fund. The provision in this Bill is made to warn the Pensions Regulator that an authorised master trust scheme may need support or intervention or be at risk of not meeting the authorisation criteria. This provision will protect scheme members and it will assist the Pensions Regulator to carry out its functions. That is why it is important that this clause stands part of the Bill.

Amendment 35 concerns the affirmative as opposed to the negative procedure. We have discussed that and we will also consider it in this context. On that basis, I hope that the noble Lord will see fit to withdraw both his opposition to the clause and his amendment. I hope that I have provided clarity on the wider purpose of Clause 16 and I commend it to the Committee.

Lord Freud

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I think the reason is that it is pretty odd to have a hybrid approach to a list of requirements some of which are in the Bill and some in regulations. We are looking to put them all together in a coherent way in regulations, which we will consider how best to introduce to the House.

Lord Freud

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The noble Lord has opened himself up to a letter from me.

The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Freud) (Con)

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My Lords, I thank noble Lords for the debate last Monday when a number of amendments were considered. Today should bring an equally interesting discussion on a slightly broader range of topics. This group relates to the new pause power introduced in Clause 31, and includes some amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, and the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, and some tabled by me. I thank the Committee for its forbearance in considering government amendments at this stage.

Lord Freud

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I think I am right in saying that the pause order would effectively trump those obligations while it is operating. However, I will come back on the detail of that. I think that is accurate. That is why it is in the legislation—so that there is legal clarity about the obligations people have when they pay into a scheme that is formally paused by the regulator.

Under Amendment 50, the pause order would not be able to prevent payments with regard to ill health benefits. The current provisions mirror those in the Pensions Act 2004 with regard to the Pensions Regulator’s freezing order. I am not convinced that there is sufficient argument on why this should differ to those provisions. In particular, the pause order direction can specify payments, so—in response to the noble Baroness, Lady Drake—the regulator will be able to consider whether to use the power to stop such payments.

The provisions in Schedule 1 to which the noble Baroness has added her amendments make it clear that there is no impact on orders made on divorce which modify members’ rights in the scheme. They do not provide for generalised exemptions to the power to prevent transfers under the pause order. The amendment would mean that, regardless of the situation, ill health payments could not be affected by a pause order. Government Amendment 47 would enable the regulator to tailor the pause order to the circumstances with regard to stopping benefit payments. I hope that the noble Baroness will agree that that solution is better than the one in Amendment 50. That would include being able to apply the pause to specified benefits and specified members, and in a way that would take account of the specific case and situation. I therefore trust that this gives some comfort that the regulator could consider certain types of membership.

To come back to the question raised by my noble friend Lady Altmann, on the legal duty for employers, paragraph 13 of Schedule 3 ensures that a pause order will not cause employers to fall foul of their legal duties. I am glad to be able to confirm that.

Lord Freud

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I think that the situation is the same—the fact that you have primary legislation will allow that to happen. I will clarify that, but I think that is the point of primary legislation.

I make the point to the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, that the Pensions Regulator will make a pause order only under carefully considered circumstances. The pause order may last for the duration of a triggering event period but is not likely to continue for a significant length of time, and the regulator must weigh up the potential impacts on members when considering whether to issue such an order.

I shall now turn to the government amendments on the pause power.

Lord Freud

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My Lords, on that narrow point, I hope that I can again reassure the noble Lord that, when those rebates are due, before the pause order is in place, we have a way of making sure that they are paid—through Clause 31(6)(a). It may be easier for me to write to the noble Lord and describe that process, but I think that it achieves what he is looking for. I will have to provide the figures on the net pay separately but will write to him on those, too.

Lord Freud

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This is really a specific point, but I will write to the noble Lord both on the numbers and on how the process will work. I hope that that will be satisfactory and that we can then dispose of the matter for the purposes of later stages of the Bill.

I turn to government Amendments 47, 48, 49 and 52. These are intended to provide further clarity and some tidying up of the provision. They are based on further consideration of the comparisons with the Pension Regulator’s freezing-order power in the Pensions Act 2004, and are intended to ensure that they work sufficiently in a triggering event period. Amendment 47 makes clear that the pause power can be used to prevent benefits being paid out. Following the introduction of the Bill to the House, we have received some inquiries as to whether this is achieved through the provisions in the Bill. That was our intent, and as the freezing-order power makes separate provision to cover this aspect, we have, through Amendment 47, made an equivalent and explicit provision in respect of the pause order. Amendment 48 inserts a missing definition of “pension credit”, which was an oversight, and mirrors the freezing-order power. Amendment 49 is consequential to Amendment 47, and ensures that members retain their entitlement to any benefit payments affected by the pause order.

Lord Freud

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Let me just respond. The difference is that we are trying to get control of an obviously difficult situation. The pause is to allow the regulator to go in and make sure that the situation is sorted. We are not talking about keeping the flow of things going in a normal way; we are talking about a very difficult situation. We are worrying about losing the money that is already there, not about the smooth flow. We are typically talking about a very short period. Setting up large paraphernalia, which the noble Baroness is beginning to drift towards, would not be the point. The real point is to get the funds transferred as quickly as possible.

The noble Baroness asked where the legislation is. I can direct her to Clause 31(5)(c), which states that any contributions not paid over to the scheme are returned to the member, and paragraph 13 of Schedule 3, which ensures that the pause order will not cause employers to fall foul of their legal duties. I hope that that helps the noble Baroness in her consideration of what we are doing.

Lord Freud

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I am grateful to my noble friend. There are different processes going on and the intention of the pause order is not to be the paraphernalia for sorting out a scheme that is in difficulty. What we are looking at is a process we can go to where we can discuss option 1 and option 2 in order to transfer the funds to a better functioning scheme. While we are doing that, we are pausing it to allow the process to happen. It is important to view the two things on more of a sequential basis than trying to make a big performance of the pause order. It is there for a different reason: it allows us to get on with sorting out the scheme and making the transfers that my noble friend is looking for.

Lord Freud

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I thank noble Lords for allowing me to speak to these amendments. Once again, please accept my sincere apologies for proposing these amendments now rather than including them in the draft Bill as introduced. Most of my proposed amendments modify the procedures the Pensions Regulator must follow when exercising some of the new functions introduced by the Bill.

Amendments 58 to 65 and Amendments 73 and 76 change the procedure that the regulator must follow when making a decision on an application for authorisation from an existing master trust scheme. The majority of the Pensions Regulator’s statutory functions are exercised through internal procedure known as “standard procedure”, with “special procedure” applying to certain functions where there is an immediate risk to members or assets. These procedures are set out in the Pensions Act 2004. The Bill as introduced provides for standard and special procedure to apply to the power to grant or refuse authorisation to an existing master trust scheme. However, on further consideration, we do not believe that some of the steps involved in these procedures would be appropriate.

The standard procedure provides for the issuing of a “warning notice” to such persons who, in the view of the regulator, would be directly affected by the regulatory action under consideration. They would then have the opportunity to make representations before a decision could be made about whether to exercise the regulatory function. This means that the Pensions Regulator would be obliged to send the trustees of an existing scheme such a notice after the trustees submit an application for authorisation.

In this instance, the regulatory action the notice would refer to would be the power to grant or refuse authorisation. It would not be necessary to warn the trustees that the regulator intends to take this regulatory action and make this decision, nor would it be appropriate to invite further representations at this point as the trustees would have submitted all necessary representations in their application. Special procedure, which dispenses with the warning notice and representations steps in the first instance, could be used only when the regulator considers there is an immediate risk to the interests of the members or assets of the scheme.

Amendments 58 to 65 and Amendments 73 and 76 would align the process of deciding whether to grant authorisation to an existing master trust with the process the Bill specifies for making this decision for new schemes. However, the amendments retain the requirement that the decision to grant or refuse authorisations must be made by the determinations panel of the Pensions Regulator. This is appropriate because in both situations a scheme operating in the market will be required to transfer members out to an authorised master trust scheme and to wind up. The impact of this is significant, and under these circumstances it is appropriate for the determinations panel to make the decision. The amendments I propose would maintain rights of appeal to the First-tier or Upper Tribunal should the decision be to refuse authorisation. The amendments would simply remove unnecessary steps and delay.

Amendment 55 has a slightly different purpose. It would ensure that if an existing master trust scheme—that is, a master trust in operation before the commencement date—submits an application for authorisation and the Pensions Regulator decides to refuse authorisation, it would not have to commence the process of transferring members out and winding up until any appeals are disposed of.

The final amendments I seek to move within this group are Amendments 72 and 77, which also deal with changes in procedure, but in relation to different regulatory powers within the Bill. The regulator has a power to direct the trustees of an authorised master trust to comply with the requirements of Clause 26 in relation to the implementation strategy. Where there is no strong reason to specify a different procedure, it is right that the regulator’s functions should be subject to the standard procedure, and for this reason Amendment 72 makes this power to direct subject to that procedure. In addition, where the trustees of a master trust should be following an approved implementation strategy but are failing to do so, under Clause 28(4) the regulator has the power to direct the trustees to pursue the continuity option identified in the strategy and to take such steps as are identified in the strategy to carry it out.

Amendment 77 makes this a power which can only be exercised by the determinations panel under standard procedure. The Government consider this appropriate, as it is a power which may have a significant impact on the scheme and its members. I hope I have given a thorough explanation of my proposed amendments. I thank noble Lords again for bearing with me in bringing these amendments at this stage of the Bill process, and I beg to move.

Lord Freud

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I am pleased to do that. My understanding is that the second assumption is correct: Amendment 76 moves it over to the determinations panel and I spelled out last Monday the process by which we will get the financial resources required by the Pensions Regulator. Clearly, one of the issues in that process will be the funds required to operate the determinations panel.

Lord Freud

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This amendment seeks to make it a criminal offence to make a cold call or send other unsolicited electronic mail or communications for the purpose of scamming a pension scheme member of their pension savings or to make changes to their existing arrangements; for example, inducing them to participate in high-risk investments. The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, focuses on a substantial issue. The figures are enormous. According to the ONS—the Office for National Statistics—eight scam calls happen every second in the UK, or over 250 million a year. Almost 11 million pensioners are targeted annually by cold callers, and savers have reported losses of nearly £19 million to pensions scams between April 2015 and March 2016. The amendment also stipulates that a person convicted of such an offence is liable to a term of imprisonment not exceeding six months, or a fine, or both, so it aims to deter scammers from such activity.

I state firmly that this is a priority for the Government, and we are determined to tackle the scourge of fraudulent nuisance calls. We want to send a strong message to consumers that they should not respond to such approaches. However, as my noble friends Lady Altmann and Lord Flight and the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, pointed out, that is not enough—banning cold calling alone will not stem the flow of transfers in scam vehicles or the establishment of those vehicles in the first place. Scammers who make cold calls are criminals and will continue to cold call and incite people to part with their savings. It probably does not make a huge amount of difference to the savers whether the criminals are based in this country or elsewhere in the world where we find it difficult to get hold of them.

The Government have explored this issue in detail, which is why in the Autumn Statement last week we announced that we will consult on how best to ban pensions cold calling. That needs to be supported by a wider package of proposed measures intended to tackle pension scams themselves. With regard to timing, on which I have been pushed by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, the plan is to publish a consultation on these measures before Christmas and to have the next steps ready for the 2017 Budget—I think it is still called a Budget—which will be in the spring. Comments can then be made on proposals to: ban cold calling in relation to pensions investments, and tackling inducements to do that; placing restrictions on certain types of transfer, which seeks to limit the flow of funds into scams; and making it harder for scammers to set up and run fraudulent small self-administered schemes, which tackles the potential vehicles for scams. We intend to provide more detail on these proposals in the consultation document.

To tackle the scams effectively, it is clearly vital to get this right and to do so in a way that does not impact on legitimate businesses. The consultation will seek to understand what impact these proposals would have on legitimate firms and member transfer activity, and what, if any, legislative solutions might be available and proportionate to disrupt the scams. In answer to the noble Baroness’s question, we will also be consulting on appropriate custodial sentences, although imposing them on people in different parts of the world is harder to achieve.

As I said, we need to ensure that we get this right, and the consultation, alongside existing engagement with experts from the pensions industry and consumer groups, will help inform our thinking. With that in mind, I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw the amendment, with which we are entirely in sympathy.

Lord Freud

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My Lords, I hope that I do not have the wrong end of the stick with this. As I see it, my noble friend’s amendment is effectively about individuals being able to move and consolidate their pots, whereas the regime that we have for master trusts is for bulk transfers.

Lord Freud

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Does my noble friend mean scheme manager or fund manager?

Lord Freud

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We have spent a lot of time talking about the continuity options 1 and 2 for trustees in a scheme in difficulty transferring in bulk, and I am sure we will return to those areas on Report. When I read the amendment, I took it to refer to a transfer where a member wants to consolidate his pension fund, which is something that we looked at in the 2014 Bill. I am at something of a loss as to how much I can add to what we discussed earlier, given my misreading of the amendment, which was talking about members wanting to consolidate their pots.

In certain circumstances a scheme may undertake a bulk transfer of members’ accrued pension rights without their consent. This could be, for example, because an employer has two or more pension schemes and wants to consolidate them. The provisions in the Bill provide the opportunity to require master trusts to transfer those members. The existing provisions in the Bill will permit a transfer on a trigger event, as my noble friend was asking.

Lord Freud

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We are currently considering whether there may be some scope to simplify the current arrangements which will make life easier for defined contribution schemes when making bulk transfers, but we must do that at a time when we do not compromise member protection. As my noble friend will be well aware, there are certain protections in place such as the requirement for an actuary to certify that the members’ rights in the receiving scheme are broadly no less favourable than those which are being transferred. When a transfer is made under the mechanisms of this Bill, after a triggering event when the regulator is looking at it, one of the main points is to make sure that there is adequate capital to fund such an event. I will have to come back to my noble friend on how that will work when a bulk transfer is made and the regulator is not involved in the process. What one would normally expect to see is a negotiation with the receiving scheme manager to ensure that it is able to fund the transfer because of the benefits of scale through putting together two systems. I imagine that when the regulator is not involved in the process, that is where the money will come from. I will double-check that and come back to my noble friends, but that is how I foresee it happening.

Lord Freud

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Now we are moving more closely into what I thought the amendment was about, which is the pot following the member. As my noble friend will know, that mirrors the spirit of Schedule 17 to the Pensions Act 2014. We have not commenced that schedule.

We are looking at another approach, which is the launch of a pensions dashboard. We want to see whether that will work. This would allow people to see their retirement savings from across the industry in one place, which they could consolidate where they felt it was in their interests. The Government will support industry in designing and delivering a pensions dashboard by 2019, with a prototype being developed by March 2017. Clearly, when we know how it works, it will set the context for looking at how best to worry about the problems of being left either in funds that an individual thought were not performing, or wanting to consolidate. It is not necessarily the case that it is always advantageous to consolidate all the different pots, given the way legislation works—in other words, where the member has valuable benefits or lower scheme charges in one or other of those pots.

There is a lot of development here and a lot of change going on. The pensions industry is absorbing a large number of reforms. The Government’s approach is to see how the industry’s plan to have the dashboard will allow much greater flexibility for individuals.

Lord Freud

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I shall try to wind this up. I accept the implied—or not so implied—concern of noble Lords that making bulk transfers is more difficult than it should be when there is no regulator process. We are now looking at whether we can simplify those arrangements. I am not in a position to say that there is going to be a consultation, or any major process, but we are looking at that. It is not straightforward, as all noble Peers will accept.

I think I have the answer: master trust bulk transfer provisions will trump existing provisions on voluntary transfers. I hope that is a useful clarification for the noble Baroness, Lady Drake. With that explanation, I urge my noble friend to withdraw his amendment.

Lord Freud

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I thank my noble friend Lord Flight for this amendment, which opens up a fascinating area. Amendment 81 would require the Secretary of State to make regulations which would have the effect of allowing companies to disregard any method of valuing defined benefit pension liabilities required by accounting standards. I recognise and understand the concerns that have been expressed in this debate and during Second Reading about the measurement of the liabilities under accounting standards, particularly when we are in what one would hope is an unusual period of interest rates being low not for reasons of the economy but because of quantitative easing.

Following its recent public consultation on its future agenda, the International Accounting Standards Board concluded that,

“there was no evidence of problems that were sufficiently widespread and significant to require a comprehensive review of IAS 19”.

However, I assure my noble friend that this is not the end of the matter. The UK’s Financial Reporting Council is in the early stages of considering the impacts of the current approach and will be examining the case for an alternative approach. I believe that this is the most appropriate way forward compared with the approach proposed by this amendment. The independence of the standard-setting approach is widely regarded as one of its strengths. I do not think it would be right for government to intervene directly—here I echo the wise words of the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie. It should not effectively set aside the accounting standards framework that has been developed to deal with these complex matters. If the Financial Reporting Council finds objective evidence or broad stakeholder demand for change, any proposals would need to take fully into account the risks they may pose to members’ benefits and would need to be tested through public consultation.

My noble friend talked about the experience in the US. When he did so at Second Reading, he got me to do some work—I always resent that—to look at that. In the US, schemes may move to calculate their funding based on yields from high-quality bonds averaged over the past 25 years. That approach would effectively discount rates by 1% and lead to employers paying significantly less into their pension schemes. What we must not allow to happen—again I echo the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, and it is not often that that happens—is a change that releases pressure on employers, only to find that that leads to their pension scheme being less well funded and members losing out.

I do not think there is a quick and easy solution here. Nobody who looks into this issue can be in any doubt that this is an extremely complex and technical area. To come up with an alternative accounting methodology would require a number of substantial steps. Those would include: undertaking a detailed analysis of the current commercial, financial and broader economic impacts of the current methodology to determine whether there is a need for that change; developing alternative approaches, which would also have to model transition impacts between the two regimes; seeking views from the market through public consultation on identifying the costs and benefits and any adverse impacts; and, finally, developing the detailed standard itself, which again would require a further round of public consultation.

We are planning to publish a Green Paper over the winter, and I can reassure noble Lords that it will explore the issue of how liabilities are measured and reported in the round. We want to ensure that measures of liabilities and deficits are properly understood and are being used and interpreted appropriately. We will explore and seek views on whether the measures used could, in some cases, be driving investment behaviour that is not in the best interests of members or employers, and we will look at what the alternatives might be. I hope I have reassured my noble friend that his concerns are being addressed and that he will withdraw his amendment.

The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Freud) (Con)

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My Lords, these amendments put the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, not just ahead but well ahead—because he and other noble Lords expressed concern in Committee about the Bill’s approach to regulation. With many regulations subject to negative resolution, they felt that they would not be subject to adequate scrutiny. Noble Lords will remember that I responded that I would reflect on that point, and the amendments before us now are a result of that reflection.

We accept that the first regulations made under several of the powers in the Bill could be made under the affirmative resolution procedure to allow for scrutiny via parliamentary debate. After the first set of regulations introducing the authorisation regime has been brought into force, subsequent amendments to those regulations are likely to be relatively minor and, as a result, we do not think that affirmative resolution at that stage would be appropriate. Parliament will, of course, have the opportunity under the negative resolution procedure to require a debate on any such regulations if there is concern.

The provisions that will be subject to affirmative resolution as a result of these amendments represent significant aspects of the authorisation regime, including the fit and proper person test, financial sustainability, systems and processes, continuity strategy and significant events.

I owe the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, a proper exposition of the process of how we get to these regulations. Currently there is an engagement process with stakeholders to develop the detailed policy. We anticipate that that and an initial consultation to inform the regulations will take place in the autumn of 2017. That will be followed by formal consultation on the draft regulations. Our intention is to lay the regulations over the summer period and commence them during October 2018.

I will now touch briefly on the actual provisions that are covered. Clause 7 relates to the need for individuals involved in the scheme to be fit and proper people. Subsection (4)(a) allows the Secretary of State to make regulations requiring the regulator to take into account certain matters when assessing whether a person is a fit and proper person to act in a particular capacity. Clauses 8 and 9 relate to the financial sustainability of a master trust. Clause 8 requires that the regulator must be satisfied that the business strategy relating to the scheme is sound and that the scheme has sufficient resources to meet certain costs. The power in Clause 8(4) is to enable regulations to set out matters that the regulator must take into account when deciding whether it is satisfied on these matters. Clause 9 relates to the requirement for a scheme strategist to produce a business plan, and the power in Clause 9(2) allows the Secretary of State to set out what information should be included.

Clause 11 makes provision for systems and processes. It includes a regulation-making power to require the Pensions Regulator to take into account specified matters when deciding whether it is satisfied that the systems and processes adopted by schemes are sufficient to ensure that they are run effectively. Clause 12 sets out the requirement for the scheme strategist to prepare the continuity strategy. The powers in subsections (5) and (6) allow the Secretary of State to determine the format in which the level of charges should be set out. Clause 16 puts a duty on specified persons involved in running an authorised master trust scheme to notify the regulator when they become aware that a “significant event” has occurred.

This group of amendments also includes one further amendment which inserts a power to make consequential amendments to other legislation, including primary legislation. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, with whom I have discussed this amendment, for allowing me to bring it forward at what I acknowledge is a late stage. It is a standard power that we have in other pensions legislation, and I really must repeat my apologies that it was not in place at the introduction. The power will be narrow in scope. It is limited to amendments that are consequential to allow for necessary technical fixes and will apply only to existing legislation and legislation passed in this Session.

While we have made every effort to identify and make the necessary consequential amendments in the Bill, pensions legislation, as I suspect noble Lords will acknowledge, is very complex and technical. Similar powers were included in the Pension Schemes Act 2015 and the Pensions Act 2014. The power is used to ensure that the legislation works as intended. For instance, the power in the Pensions Act 2014 was used to ensure that the new state pension was taken into account when setting the automatic enrolment earnings threshold. As was the case in these Acts, this power will also be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure when used to amend primary legislation.

After the concerns expressed in Committee, I hope that these proposed amendments have met noble Lords’ concerns that the crucial aspects of the regime will have appropriate scrutiny. I also hope that I have explained why the amendment to Clause 37 is necessary in order to ensure that the legislation works as it should. I will once again repeat my thanks to noble Lords for bearing with me in bringing forward these amendments at this stage, and I trust that I have explained the position properly and given the appropriate level of reassurance. I beg to move.

Lord Freud

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My Lords, I thank your Lordships for your understanding. I thank again the whole House and its committees, which made the point forcefully about making all these substantial regulations subject to the negative procedure. This was an occasion where we went back. There was a good suggestion—I am sure it was from the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie—that we should do it the first time via the affirmative procedure. I am with the noble Lord on this in thinking that that is a pretty smart way of doing this kind of legislation, because one can really clog up Parliament with affirmatives. I have to do quite a few of them and really, when one looks at them, it is overkill. This compromise may be something that we can look at becoming more of an institution in future. Let us just see on that.

On the power in Clause 37 and the pointed question put by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, about its use, I assure noble Lords that that power is narrow in scope. It will be limited to consequential amendments to allow for necessary technical fixes. It will apply only to existing legislation and legislation passed in this Session. Just to make it absolutely clear, it can be used to amend primary legislation but only in this consequential context to allow necessary amendments to make the Bill work.

I am grateful for the understanding of the House on all these amendments—the last of them in particular. I beg to move.

Lord Freud

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To make it clear, it incorporates legislation that now exists and the legislation that we will prospectively pass with this Bill.

The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Freud) (Con)

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My Lords, I will address Amendment 6, which was tabled by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Drake and Lady Bakewell. This is a valuable opportunity for us to discuss member protection, which is clearly at the heart of the Bill and the master trust authorisation regime.

It is not clear why an amendment has been tabled that would require the Secretary of State to make provision for a scheme funder of last resort should a master trust have insufficient resources to meet the cost of complying with the duties arising from a triggering event and to cover the cost of running the scheme on. I simply do not believe this issue requires such a sledge-hammer given all the mitigations against this risk which the Bill introduces, to which I will return briefly later on. The intention behind the amendment is a lingering concern that a failing scheme might not be able to cover the cost of transferring its members’ accrued rights out. However, to require the Secretary of State to provide for a scheme funder of last resort would be a costly and disproportionate response. Unfortunately, the amendment does not provide any details of how such a scheme might be achieved at reasonable cost. It would appear to require quite large-scale infrastructural change—the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, mentioned the idea of creating an institution with a PSO. There would need to be transparency in the schemes to which the facility would apply, and we would need to prevent any moral hazard in its application.

I am aware that schemes have failed in the past, and I understand that in some cases these failures have proven expensive to resolve. However, those failures have almost entirely occurred in schemes offering defined benefit pensions. The risks in those types of schemes are very different and the complexity of their structures can make them much more difficult to wind up than a master trust offering defined contribution benefits. If a defined benefit scheme which has been operating for a long time fails, it is much more likely that it will be more time-consuming and expensive for that scheme to close than it would be for a master trust scheme. In the case of master trusts, the noble Lords have inadvertently blown the risk out of proportion.

On the mitigations I mentioned earlier, the Bill contains a raft of measures which address the same risks that the amendment is seeking to address. The financial sustainability requirement is a key risk mitigation as, among other things, it requires schemes to satisfy the Pensions Regulator that they have sufficient financial resources to comply with their continuity strategy in Clauses 20 to 33 and to run on, following a triggering event. On application for authorisation to operate, a master trust must satisfy the regulator that it has sufficient financial resources, and post-authorisation the regulator has an ongoing duty to monitor the scheme to ensure that it continues to be financially sustainable.

In carrying out its supervisory role the regulator will assess the amount of money that the scheme requires to meet its costs, taking account of its size, the assumptions set out in its business plan, the available assets and the financial strength of the scheme funder. Furthermore, to ensure that any resources are available at the point of need, a regulation-making power enables the Secretary of State to specify requirements that the scheme funder must meet in relation to the assets, capital or liquidity. This power might be used to require certain funds to be put aside and only accessible for specific purposes, and to impose requirements about the liquidity of any capital so that it is easily realisable. Should a scheme fail, Clause 33 prevents the trustees from increasing the charges paid by members during the event-triggering period, so members’ pension pots are protected.

To prevent schemes winding up with the records in disarray and without the financial resource to put things right, one of the authorisation criteria requires schemes to satisfy the regulator that they have appropriate administration systems and processes such as record management, IT systems, and resource planning. Schemes will be subject to regular monitoring.

To pick up the specific concern mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, about the impact of an IT system failure on a scheme’s records, the requirement is for appropriate systems and processes, including back-up systems. The Pensions Regulator has not so far come across a master trust experiencing a computer failure; in practice, failures have been due to schemes not being financially viable.

Finally, it is inappropriate for the Government to intervene in the market by making provision for a scheme funder of last resort. First, such an intervention might undermine member protection by creating a moral hazard that disincentivised schemes from protecting their members. Secondly, if the Secretary of State were required to make provision for a scheme funder of last resort, this could disrupt the normal operation of the market by deterring other master trusts, or scheme funders, from retaining public confidence in master trusts and rescuing a failing scheme. We already know of some master trusts that have been consolidated by being taken over by others. In the extreme, the taxpayer could end up having to pick up the tab for failed schemes. However, the essential argument is that Clause 33 protects members’ savings from being used to pay for the costs of winding up or transferring. With that explanation in mind, I urge the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

I now turn to Amendment 23, which may provide some redress for my views on Amendment 6. This amendment introduces a new clause relating to compensation for fraud, and it may provide some mitigation for noble Lords’ concerns. In addition to protecting members’ interests through the master trust authorisation regime, we are ensuring, through the introduction of this new clause, that members in master trust schemes are protected from the risk of fraud. It will allow regulations to be made that modify the provisions on fraud compensation in the Pensions Act 2004 so that they can be more applicable to master trusts and to any other occupational pension schemes to which all or some of the provisions of Part 1 of the Bill apply.

At present, fraud compensation payments can be made to occupational pension schemes where certain conditions are met. These conditions include that the value of the scheme’s assets has been reduced and that there are reasonable grounds for believing that this has been due to dishonesty. Also, all the employers in relation to the scheme must have gone out of business or the businesses must be unlikely to continue as going concerns.

Master trust schemes are occupational pension schemes, and we think it is right that they should qualify for fraud compensation payments and that their members should be entitled to this protection in the same way as members in other occupational pension schemes. However, as master trusts are used, or are intended to be used, by multiple employers who do not need a connection to each other, they would be likely to have difficulty meeting that last condition on the insolvency of all the participating employers. Therefore, our intention is that regulations will remove this employer insolvency requirement for master trusts and add other conditions to make fraud compensation more suitable for these types of schemes. These regulations would, of course, be subject to consultation, which would allow us to engage with stakeholders in developing them.

I hope that the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, will feel that on balance he has moved somewhat ahead in respect of these amendments.

Lord Freud

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I should make it clear to the noble Baroness that we looked closely at tail-end risk insurance. It works within the legislation and the regulator can accept it. We have not made it a major issue at this stage because, at the moment, no such insurance is available in the market. That may change, of course.

Lord Freud

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I am saying that the clause is carefully drafted to allow tail-end insurance as part of the capital adequacy when the regulator looks at what is required. We are not in a position to do any more at this stage because that particular insurance is not available in the market. It may well become available in the market as people see the requirement.

Lord Freud

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I am grateful to the noble Baroness for inviting me to intervene again. Under the Bill, if there are costs, they will not fall on the members, so who is she trying to protect? As to my point about the sledge-hammer, if we could have found tail-end insurance, which the noble Baroness mentioned, it would have been cheaper. Other ways that I can think of are quite expensive. It is not appropriate to suggest a solution that is not available.

Lord Freud

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The noble Baroness has been so generous and I will take the opportunity to go over this because it is slightly back to front from normal. This is not like a defined benefit scheme worth billions of pounds which are at severe risk. This is about the costs of moving the money that is attached to individual people to another master trust. It is a completely different order of risk. I know that she is coloured by what she has seen in the defined benefit world, but this is quite different. It is a much smaller risk. As I have said, in any case the costs do not fall on the members and the mitigation issue is disproportionate.

Lord Freud

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I shall take the opportunity to go through the matter of transfers because there has been a lot of discussion of it and this at the heart of it. I will pick up what we did in Committee, where the amendment from my noble friend Lord Flight referred to automatic transfers. I confirm that we will look to revisit automatic transfers once the market has absorbed the recent reforms.

The next issue was that we announced in 2016 that we would ensure that the pensions industry launched the pensions dashboard, which would allow people to see in one place their retirement savings from across the industry, which they could consolidate, and the Government would support the industry in doing that.

We then moved on to touch on transfers between default funds—for example, where a trustee may wish to move members out of an old default fund into a new one because they think the old fund is not offering value for money. There, we were concerned whether members might get left behind. This would be for the trustees to consider and act on under their fiduciary duty, not for legislation.

Then we had issues about bulk transfers in place at the moment, which require an employer connection and an actuarial certificate. There, I confirm again that we would have a call for evidence to consider the potential changes to DC to DC transfers. The last point that we visited was about the transfer from a master trust which is failing. Again, I confirm that where a scheme is acting under option 1 following a triggering event, the Bill applies, not the current provision under legislation relating to bulk transfer without member consent.

I think that sets a useful context for consideration of the amendments. Amendment 20 makes two additions to what will be covered by the regulations that must be made under Clause 24. Clause 24 sets out the detail of continuity option 1 and the requirements. In this situation, the clause requires that the trustee must identify one or more master trusts to which members’ rights must be transferred. The regulation-making power set out a number of matters connected with how this process should work. The intent is for members to be able to continue to save with as little disruption as possible and to protect the rights that they have accrued.

The regulator is aware of the need for schemes to be available that have been authorised into which members can be transferred. Experience to date has shown that there are good-quality schemes in the market. From our discussions with both master trusts and pension industry bodies, we are aware that they are keen to demonstrate the reliability of master trusts and for members to have confidence in them as a vehicle for pension saving, and there are therefore likely to be some available to take in transfers. For many master trusts, making themselves available to take a transfer would offer the opportunity to take in a number of members that they have not had to actively source—clearly, they get the benefits of scale.

Employers and members also have reassurance provided by NEST. Although a master trust could not itself do a direct bulk transfer to NEST—as the employer must first establish a connection with NEST—an employer could chose to sign up to NEST and move its workers across. NEST is required to admit any employer and any worker enrolled by the employer to meet its automatic enrolment duties.

The master trust industry has expressed an interest in developing its own panel of providers to assist with addressing situations where a master trust fails. Although we cannot guarantee that there will be a large number of master trusts looking to take on members of any failed master trust, we are confident that there is adequate provision within the market overall.

The second part of Amendment 20 would require that regulations made under Clause 24 set out what would happen to any non-money purchase benefits where a master trust which has mixed benefits was going to transfer the money-purchase benefits out of the scheme and cease to operate in respect of those benefits. We do not believe that that is necessary. We have been careful to design the master trust authorisation to target the risks to money-purchase benefits in these structures.

Therefore, if authorisation is withdrawn from a master trust which offers mixed benefits, it will be required to stop operating in relation to the money-purchase benefits only. It may still continue to operate in respect of the non-money purchase benefits if it is compliant with the relevant requirements of the non-money purchase benefit regime.

Where the scheme as a whole is winding up, existing provisions governing how non-money purchase benefits are to be discharged will apply to those benefits. That is clearly an issue of avoiding duplication.

On the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, the regulator can decide to encourage the scheme to substitute the scheme funder where this is appropriate, and before it moves to withdraw authorisation. The flexibility is there. Adding on the requirement that one option must be looked at before the other would probably reduce flexibility.

Amendments 19, 21 and 22 seek to make provision that continuity option 1 also allows for the substitution of a new scheme funder. Clause 23 sets out the two continuity options that must be pursued by trustees when a master trust has a triggering event. Unless authorisation has been withdrawn or refused, trustees will have a choice as to which continuity option they pursue. Clause 24 describes continuity option 1. Continuity option 2, under Clause 25, is when a master trust resolves its triggering event itself. The legislation does not specify how the event can be resolved, which is deliberate. It means that it encompasses a wide range of options, including the substitution of a new scheme funder. The trustees have the freedom to choose how best to resolve the event their scheme has had.

Clause 26 sets out the duty on the trustees to submit an implementation strategy to the regulator. Our aim is that members continue to save in a pension. Under continuity option 1, the situation is such that to protect members’ rights it is necessary that the scheme transfer these rights out and wind up. The event that led to continuity option 1 will often not be about the scheme funder, so a new scheme funder would not rectify the issue. If the Pensions Regulator has had to withdraw authorisation, a new scheme funder will not be the right response. It is likely the regulator will have ensured the trustees considered this at an earlier stage. Under continuity option 2 the aim is that the triggering event is resolved.

The amendments seek to provide that continuity option 1 also covers the substitution of a new scheme funder, which seems to be a misunderstanding of what is provided in the Bill and would cut across how the two options are intended to work. Where the trustees have the choice about which to pursue, they can try to resolve it. Identifying a new scheme funder is just one of the ways to get that resolution. We do not want to limit schemes’ options which is why we did not list particular solutions. The substitution of a new scheme funder already comes within continuity option 2 and its process.

We agree that where a master trust has experienced a triggering event, a new scheme funder could be identified, and could be the most appropriate resolution of a triggering event. This should be an option open to the trustees. That is why we have made the provision for continuity option 2. Continuity option 1 is solely about transfer out and wind up. The amendments would cut across the way in which the options and indeed, the regime as a whole, works in the Bill. With these explanations I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

Lord Freud

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My Lords, the effect of Amendment 25 would be to widen the definition of administration charges for the purposes of Part 1 of the Bill, so that it is capable of including transaction costs. It may be helpful if I explain that we considered the inclusion of transaction costs when developing this policy. We concluded that the provision that has been made in the Bill under Clause 33, including prohibiting an increase in administration charge levels after a triggering event, was sufficient to minimise the risks faced by savers in master trust schemes.

The term “administration charges” may prompt Peers to believe that the prohibition in Clause 33 applies to only a narrow range of costs and charges faced by members. This is not so. Among the charges intended to be caught by the administration charge definition are fees on set-up, entry, exit, and regular and ad hoc fees paid not only to administrators but also many fees paid to governance bodies, regulators, asset managers, investment consultants, lawyers, accountants, auditors, valuers, bankers, custody banks, platform providers and shareholder service providers.

In the majority of cases, trustees do not currently have access to information about transaction costs. Including them within the scope of the prohibition under Clause 33, therefore, would place many trustees in a difficult position. I can assure noble Lords that we acknowledge the need for improved transparency and understanding by trustees about the transaction costs which the members of their schemes will bear.

Noble Lords will remember that, during the passage of the Pensions Act 2014, my department accepted a legal duty to make regulations requiring that transaction costs would be given to members of occupational pension schemes and be published. The Financial Conduct Authority took similar duties with regard to workplace personal pensions at the same time. Again, I acknowledge and thank my noble friend Lord Lawson for his input into the process of developing that part of the Act. I appreciate that some Peers may be disappointed that we have not yet discharged that duty, but in mitigation I should explain that there has never been a single agreed definition of transaction costs nor a way of calculating them. We have made progress in defining transaction costs, but until recently we made less progress on a way of calculating them. This is because many transaction costs are not explicit costs which appear on a scheme’s balance sheet but implicit “frictional” costs from trading, which need to be calculated. The wide variety of approaches to calculating transaction costs are not simply disputes about the odd one-hundredth of a percent but quite significant differences in methodology, which can result in transaction costs differing by a factor of five.

We clearly need to ensure that trustees of occupational schemes and the independent governance committees of workplace personal pension providers have complete, consistent and standardised cost and charges information before they can report it to members; at this point, they do not. The key stepping stone to putting this information into the hands of trustees and independent governance committees was laid down when the Financial Conduct Authority published in October of this year a consultation on proposals requiring asset managers to disclose information about transaction costs to trustees, and a detailed methodology for calculating those costs. Following the outcome of the FCA’s consultation, we currently plan to consult on the publication and onward disclosure of costs and charges to members in 2017. In conclusion on this point, I can assure Peers that we remain wholly committed to discharging this duty in the course of this Parliament. We want pension scheme members to have sight of all costs and charges, regardless of how they are incurred, and to give members the confidence that there are no other hidden costs and charges.

The noble Baroness, Lady Drake, made us aware of the interim findings of the FCA’s Asset Management Market Study, published last month, which found weak competition in the market and proposed remedies through the introduction of an all-in charge and standardised disclosures to all investors. These are timely findings, because noble Lords may also be aware that the Government announced this month that they would be examining the level of the 0.75% charge cap on administration charges in the default funds of schemes used for automatic enrolment and whether some or all transaction costs should be covered by the cap. This work will be undertaken in 2017 as part of the review of automatic enrolment. It will involve comprehensive engagement with a wide range of stakeholders, including asset managers, which will be important given the potentially complex nature of transaction costs. The outcome of the 2017 exercise will help to determine whether there is a need to amend the definition of administration charges in Schedule 18 to the Pensions Act 2014, and at that point we will consider whether we should also cover transaction costs in the master trust legislation.

I reassure noble Lords that in practice we do not believe that transaction costs are a loophole that will be exploited to drive up charges to the detriment of members. Noble Lords will be aware that the vast majority of defined contribution pension schemes, including master trusts, are invested via investment platforms in pooled funds in which the trustees of the scheme will be just one among many investors. Given this pooled and intermediated nature of pension fund investments, it is highly unlikely that a triggering event experienced by just one of the investors in the fund would drive up the ongoing transaction costs from remaining invested in the fund. Taking these points into account, it does not appear necessary to bring transaction costs into the charge prohibition measure in the Bill.

Before I conclude, I ought to acknowledge that this is the last time I will stand before your Lordships on a Bill as a DWP Minister, although it is not quite my last appearance in the role, because we will have some fun on Wednesday discussing universal credit—I hope we will. On Third Reading in the new year, and when the Bill potentially returns to the House for further consideration after it has been looked at by the Commons, I will be leaving your Lordships in the very capable hands of my noble friend Lord Young—the junior member of the Freud/“Jung” combo. I thank him for all the support and time he has given me, and I am sure that noble Lords will continue to afford him the same courtesy and patience that has been displayed thus far.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Henley) (Con)

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My Lords, this is a technical amendment and simply clarifies the scope of the regulation-making power in Clause 11 to ensure it meets the policy intention. Clause 11(4) provides that the Secretary of State may make regulations setting out requirements relating to a scheme funder’s accounts. The Government have always intended that the power would enable regulations to be made requiring scheme funders to produce full audited annual accounts, if they are not otherwise required to do so—for instance, in accordance with the Companies Act 2006. This is set out in the delegated powers memorandum, which has been published. However, it was brought to our attention that specific provision about audit in existing legislation might cast doubt on the breadth of the power, so this amendment is intended to put that position beyond any doubt.

The Secretary of State will be able to require in regulations, where appropriate, that scheme funders’ accounts must be audited. This is an important clarification because the scheme funder’s accounts, along with the scheme accounts and the business plan, will provide key financial information on which the Pensions Regulator will base its assessment of the master trust’s financial sustainability. The scheme funder’s accounts will enable the regulator to monitor the scheme funder’s financial position and assess the strength of any financial commitment to the master trust set out in the business plan. Requiring the accounts to be audited ensures that the scheme funder’s financial position is independently verified by a qualified auditor.

The amendment makes it clear that the regulation-making power may be used to apply some or all of the provisions in Parts 15 and 16 of the Companies Act 2006, which relate to the preparation and auditing of accounts and other related matters in respect of different types of scheme funders. Having this flexibility will enable the Secretary of State to take account of the range of master trust structures and financial arrangements with their scheme funders.

Before I conclude, I offer my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, and other noble Lords who have taken part in the debate for the generally positive approach they have taken during the passage of the Bill. I appreciate that my noble friend Lord Freud has already offered his thanks to all who have been involved in the Bill. However, as he moves on to pastures new, I echo those thanks and offer my thanks to him and to my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham for the help they have given me and for ensuring that I was appropriately briefed for this final and, I hope, rather short stage. We all trust that another place will be able to give it equally effective scrutiny, as it always manages to do.

To conclude, the amendment is intended to ensure that the scope of the regulation-making power in Clause 11(4) is wide enough to enable the policy to operate as intended. On that basis, I beg to move.

Lord Henley

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My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their very kind words and in particular, the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, for his high expectations of me in replacing my noble friend Lord Freud. If I do only half as well as my noble friend, I think I will be doing pretty well—I hope the House accepts that I will try my best. I can also confirm to the noble Lord that impact assessments will be updated for the new regulations. The timing for the formal consultation on the draft regulations will obviously depend on a number of factors, but we would expect that the initial consultation will take place some time in the autumn of this year.

I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, for not opposing the amendment. He had a number of questions, particularly in relation to scheme funders and I would prefer to write to him about those. He also asked whether the Government were going to table an amendment on scheme funders of a master trust that offers both money purchase and non-purchase benefits. I can confirm that they intend to table such an amendment and that can be a matter for another place.

My noble friends Lord Naseby and Lady Altmann raised concerns that go wider than this simple amendment, which merely relates to audit. Those matters can be considered and no doubt, will be noted by my noble friends when they take this Bill through another place. As I said in my introductory remarks, I expect another place, as always, to look at this Bill with its usual due diligence and I am sure that it will take note of the comments made by both my noble friends. If it can assist them, I shall try to write to them before that, but everything they have said will be noted by my honourable and right honourable friends. With that, I echo the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, in thanking all those who have been involved in this Bill.

Lord Henley

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That this House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment 1.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Henley) (Con)

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My Lords, if it is convenient to the House I shall speak also to Amendments 3, 4 and 20. The amendments largely respond to points raised in debates in this House. Amendments 1 and 20 address an unintended consequence of the Bill and enable a scheme funder to engage in activities in relation to any part of the scheme, not just the money purchase section. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, for drawing our attention to that issue. Amendments 3 and 4 address the original requirement in the Bill that the scheme funder must be a separate legal entity and must only carry out activities directly relating to the master trust scheme in question. Noble Lords and stakeholders raised concerns about the impact of this requirement on business.

First, the amendments enable scheme funders to operate more than one master trust. Secondly, a new regulation-making power will introduce some flexibility to the requirement that scheme funders’ activities be limited to the master trusts of which they are the scheme funder or prospective funder by allowing exceptions subject to certain requirements. For example, the regulations might require that a scheme funder who carries out activities other than those that relate to the master trust disclose information similar to the financial reports in its management accounts, so that the activities relating to the master trust are distinct from other lines of business. The regulations may also require, where a scheme funder is part of group of companies, that information be disclosed about the corporate structure of the group to the extent that it affects the financing of the master trust.

Lord Henley

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My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, for the constructive approach he has taken to this group of amendments. I hope that this will continue for the rest of this consideration of Commons amendments. He raised various points about Cridland and the state pension age, which go wider than the Bill at the moment. I will not respond to those points but he made an important point about the degree of secondary legislation that will come forward not purely from the Department for Work and Pensions but from across government—he meant later this year, I presume, and throughout next year. He wondered whether we hoped to get all of it completed by 2018. I believe that we do but it will obviously be quite a trying matter. We will want to continue to engage with the regulator, the pension industry and other stakeholders throughout the year. That will be followed by formal consultation on those draft regulations, which we currently hope to get early next year so that we can get them coming into force from 2018.

What pressure there will be on this House and another place from all the various primary and secondary legislation coming before us is probably beyond the noble Lord’s pay grade, and certainly beyond mine. However, I am sure that the usual channels will discuss that and ensure that we give appropriate coverage to all these matters.

As to the detailed timetable of all that consultation with the regulator and pension stakeholders, the noble Lord asked for a table, but it might be helpful it I write him a short letter setting that out, if there is anything that I can add to what I have said. We aim to have those regulations coming into force from 2018, and nothing that I have seen so far seems to suggest that we will not be able to meet that. I think we can go ahead and agree these amendments. I hope the noble Lord will accept that.

Lord Henley

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That this House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment 2.

Lord Henley

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My Lords, it will be convenient to take Amendments 5 to 19 at this stage. In the other place, Amendment 2 resulted in the removal of Clause 9, which had been inserted in this House after a vote on Report on an amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Drake. It provided for a scheme funder of last resort to meet costs where a master trust is being wound up without the necessary funds to transfer the accrued benefits. It remains the Government’s view that this provision is simply not required. I do not want to go through all the arguments put forward by my noble friends Lord Young and Lord Freud who took this Bill through the vast majority of its stages late last year. The Bill requires that in order to operate, a master trust must be authorised. The authorisation criteria include that the master trust must be financially sustainable and have sufficient systems and processes for the running of the scheme. To meet the financial sustainability requirement, the scheme will, among other things, need to provide evidence to the Pensions Regulator that it has sufficient funds to meet the costs of wind up. It will also have to provide evidence that it has sufficient systems and processes, which will include its arrangements for holding accurate records on its members and the rights and benefits to which they are entitled. The Pensions Regulator will carry out ongoing supervision of master trusts. The schemes will be required periodically to provide the Pensions Regulator with information on its financial resources and administration to enable the Pensions Regulator to be satisfied that the funding remains adequate and the systems and processes robust. A scheme funder of last resort would therefore be required only if this whole approach to regulation fails in some catastrophic way. I have no reason to believe that it is likely to do so.

Amendments 5 to 19 concern the provisions in the Bill for a master trust that is going to wind up; they are intended to address concerns that were raised in earlier debates in this House that finding another master trust to take members on may be difficult. The amendments allow regulations to provide that master trusts that are to be wound up under continuity option 1 can transfer their members’ accrued rights and benefits to a pension scheme other than a master trust. In addition, the same restrictions in the Bill on new or increased charges being applied to a master trust receiving scheme could be applied by regulations to that non-master trust receiving scheme.

In introducing these amendments in another place, my honourable friend the Minister for Pensions said:

“The non-master trust receiving scheme would be made subject to exactly the same restrictions on increasing or introducing new charges as those to which master trust receiving schemes are subject”.—[Official Report, Commons, Pension Schemes Bill Committee, 7/2/17; col. 65.]


The amendments allow for regulations to be made that would widen the potential destinations to which members of a master trust being wound up can be transferred, while ensuring that their savings cannot be used to fund the costs of that transfer. In another place, my honourable friend the Minister for Pensions explained:

“Allowing other types of pension schemes to receive transferred members, as long as they meet specified requirements, could increase the options available to trustees, introduce extra flexibility and widen the market for potential schemes. This might be useful if trustees found that they were struggling to find somewhere appropriate for their members’ rights, which might particularly benefit members using decumulation options. Being able to increase the options in future might help reduce the risk that trustees of failing master trusts might not be able to find another master trust to take their members on”.—[Official Report, Commons, Pension Schemes Bill Committee, 7/2/17; col. 66.]


Amendments 5 to 19 are therefore primarily useful in future-proofing this aspect of the authorisation regime, and will be used as and when developments in the market give rise to a need for them. Not to include them in the Bill at this stage could unnecessarily restrict the market for members’ rights and benefits to their detriment. I beg to move.

Lord Henley

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I start by offering my thanks to the noble Lord for making it clear that he is not minded to oppose these amendments. I understand that noble Lords felt quite strongly about their amendments and for that reason wanted them in the Bill to be considered by another place. The other place has considered those amendments and we now have this opportunity for further debate. We can then get on with seeing the Bill on to the statute book.

Before dealing with the questions, I shall respond to the brief point made by my noble friend Lady Altmann about not being happy with the groupings. The groupings are a largely informal matter, sorted out by the usual channels. To my knowledge—and I think that it was probably done in discussion with the Opposition—they have changed a number of times, but that is not unusual. Very often we get it wrong in how things are grouped. But as is made clear on the bit of paper that comes to the House every day, groupings are an informal matter, and it is always open to all noble Lords to intervene on any appropriate amendment at the appropriate stage.

Lord Henley

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I am grateful to the noble Lord. It is a matter that is possibly more in the hands of the Opposition than those of anyone else—but it is also a matter for all other Members of the House to put in their views, if they wish. The groupings are designed purely to assist the House and, as the mantra makes clear, they are informal and can be broken by any noble Lord.

A number of questions were put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Drake. Again, I commend her for all the work on this Bill; I am grateful that it was largely my noble friends Lord Young and Lord Freud who had to deal with her expertise at those earlier stages, rather than myself. I come to it late, and have learned a certain amount in the course of proceedings—and, no doubt, I shall learn more in due course, particularly when we get to the regulations referred to earlier.

I come to the first of the noble Baroness’s questions, when she asked what further plans the department had for how things would be taken forward. My honourable friend the Minister for Pensions, who takes this Bill and all within it very seriously, referred in Committee to conversations that he had with representatives of certain pension funds who were then contemplating a system for allocation among themselves of any master trust that was going to wind up, if the market did not provide a proper destination. Those discussions will continue and, no doubt, my honourable friend, if he has any further points, will be able to speak to my noble friend Lady Altmann and others who have concerns.

My noble friend Lady Altmann was also worried about the confidence that we had that the risk of a master trust failing in a catastrophic manner is very low. I would still maintain that, and I think so would my honourable friend. The Pensions Regulator has been working very closely with the master trusts, and the work certainly gives us all in the department the comfort that the risk is low. The regulator continues to proactively assess the level of risk in the master trust market, and so will be alert to any changes. We hope that the regulator will publish information, including on confidence in the levels available in due course.

The noble Baroness, Lady Drake, also raised the question of how the Government will be satisfied that the receiving scheme is sustainable and well governed. Any receiving scheme would have to be regulated by the appropriate regulator; all the occupational schemes will be overseen by the Pensions Regulator and all the contract schemes will be regulated by the FCA. We hope that that will provide the appropriate coverage.

Finally, the noble Baroness asked about the Pensions Regulator and how it would apply the prohibition. The Bill provides the power to legislate on restrictions on charges in non-master trust receiving schemes. How those restrictions on charges would operate where the receiving scheme was not regulated by the Pensions Regulator would form part of future discussions if these regulations were considered to be necessary. For instance, if the scheme was regulated by the FCA, there would be discussions with the FCA about how to achieve this.

As the regulator of the exiting scheme, the Pensions Regulator would have responsibility and oversight over this scheme’s actions. The master trust pursuing continuity option 1 will have to set out in its implementation strategy which scheme it intends to use as its receiving scheme. The exiting master trust will have its implementation strategy approved by the Pensions Regulator, which also has the power to direct the trustees of the exiting master trust where they are failing to comply with their duties under the Bill. While the Pensions Regulator may not be the regulator of the receiving scheme, it will have oversight and powers it can use in that situation.

I hope that that deals largely with most of the questions. If there is anything I have failed to address, obviously, I will write. However, there will be further opportunities as we consult on those regulations over the coming year and next year to deal with these matters. Again, I give the assurance that my honourable friend the Minister for Pensions, as well as my right honourable friend the Secretary of State, will keep all this in mind and will be open to all comments that noble Lords wish to make.

Lord Henley

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That this House do agree with the Commons in their Amendments 3 to 20.

Lord Henley

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That this House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment 21.

Lord Henley

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My Lords, I am not sure that I have ever spoken on a privilege amendment before, but I have noted what my noble friend had to say and I promise to write to her. I beg to move.