Universal Credit: Court of Appeal Judgment
Baroness Altmann Excerpts(3 years, 10 months ago)
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Baroness Stedman-Scott [V]
The noble Baroness makes a good point. We have never, ever suggested that the universal credit system is 100% perfect, but it has absolutely delivered in terms of paying the increased numbers we have. She has raised universal basic income on previous occasions. Our position has not changed: we have no plans to bring it in because it would disincentivise people to look for work and the cost would be astronomical.
Baroness Altmann (Con) [V]
I congratulate my noble friend on the tremendous work of her department in coping with the unprecedented number of new universal credit claims. Could she confirm that more than 1 million people have been able to receive an advanced first payment, giving them support in just a few days? Does she agree that this has been vital to prevent hardship during this crisis period?
Baroness Stedman-Scott [V]
The Government have worked at pace to ensure that money gets to people in a timely manner to avoid hardship and as many difficulties as we can. I can confirm that 1 million applications for advances have been made available to people who need them quickly. The advances are interest-free and repayable over 12 months at the moment, but as of next year this will go up to 24 months.
Universal Credit
Baroness Altmann Excerpts(3 years, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Stedman-Scott
I am not sure that I agree with the noble Baroness about the complexities of the changes. As we have made clear all along, we are trying to make the universal credit system replicate the world of work. However, I am aware that people on low incomes have difficulties, and I assure the noble Baroness that the Government want to do all they can to help them.
Baroness Altmann (Con)
My Lords, can my noble friend expand a little on the previous question and explain how the structure of monthly payments compares with the legacy system, which had much shorter time- scales?
Baroness Stedman-Scott
Universal credit is simpler and fairer than the legacy system. It is designed to target resources at those who need them the most and to provide support for people who cannot work. There is a monthly reconciliation, which we are absolutely clear is better than the annual reconciliation.
Automatic Enrolment (Offshore Employment) (Amendment) Order 2020
Baroness Altmann Excerpts(3 years, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Altmann (Con)
I thank my noble friend for laying these statutory instruments, and for her excellent introduction. I also congratulate the Government on protecting the principle of auto-enrolment, which has been so successful in bringing millions more people into the policy of pension saving and provision for retirement. This principle has been preserved for all sectors by extending the application of auto-enrolment to this group of maritime and seafaring workers.
I also congratulate the Government on protecting the principle of automatic enrolment during the furlough scheme. This principle is so important and, by deciding that automatic enrolment—at least at the minimum statutory level—will be protected through the current crisis in the furlough scheme, the Government have shown an excellent example of considering the longer term amid a short-term emergency.
We have the lowest state pension in the developed world. That makes supplementary saving essential, and the principle of extra private provision, supported by employers and taxpayers, is an important one throughout our society. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, and other noble Lords on all the work that they have done over the years to introduce and protect this policy.
Perhaps I may raise one issue that my noble friend is aware I have particular concerns about. It is the position of low-paid workers who are being automatically enrolled into net pay pension schemes through their workplace. They do not get the tax relief that they would in an alternative scheme, and therefore they are paying an extra 25% for their pension. As the Institute for Fiscal Studies has pointed out, these workers clearly are those who are most in need of every extra penny that they can earn. I know that this net pay policy is one that I know my noble friend the Minister and the department have been looking at, and I urge the Government to take seriously the proposals to address this issue.
I fully support these statutory instruments and I congratulate the Government and my noble friend. I look forward to continuing the successful policy of auto-enrolment into the future.
Pension Schemes Bill [HL]
Baroness Altmann ExcerptsWednesday 4th March 2020
(4 years, 2 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Pension Schemes Act 2021 View all Pension Schemes Act 2021 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 4-IV Fourth marshalled list for Grand Committee - (2 Mar 2020)
Lord Balfe (Con)
This is a rather technical amendment in many ways. I declare my interest as the president of the British Airline Pilots Association, one of the unions that would be affected by a change in the law such as is suggested here.
Members generally pay into pension schemes on the basis of putting so much in for an accrual rate, which gives them a pension. But if pensions go into the lifeboat, the amount that people can get out is limited. This ruling was originally done for a very good reason: to stop boards of directors awarding themselves large pensions, then a company going bust while they transferred the liability for their excesses into the lifeboat. However, it had an effect which I do not think was foreseen. There are a number of people in the private sector who have quite high earnings and are in pension schemes—at that time largely in DB schemes—and they were affected by this ruling. In short, it meant that people were paying into a scheme but not getting out what they had been paying in for. They were given a promise but it was not honoured, because of the cap that was put in place.
Amendment 80 seeks to review this cap. I accept that it is a complicated matter and would be more than happy if, in responding, the Minister can say that she is prepared to have this added to the subjects we are to discuss at the meeting which has been promised. I recognise that if we were to change the law, we cannot just abolish it. We would need to look at things; in particular, I suggest that we would need to erect some safeguards with reference to accrual rates, so that we would not allow an accrual rate above a reasonable level—possibly 2%. Any person affected would also have to be able to demonstrate that they had paid into the pension scheme over a number of years, and had not been awarded a lump sum of years just before the company went under. There would also have to be maximum contributions for tax relief. In other words, you could not suddenly have a huge contribution going in and building up a large amount of pension.
The amendment is basically aimed at enabling workers who have paid for a pension scheme but happen to be high earners to look forward to getting what they have paid for. I point out that, at the moment, the main people affected would be those who used to work for Monarch. But I would not like to predict where, for instance, the British Airways pension scheme will be 10 years from now. The Spanish company that is now the owner of BA might well be in a position where, for some reason or other, it is not able to fully honour the pension agreement. It is better to look at it now than to do so then.
I also make the point that most high earners in society are covered by public sector pension schemes. The people who work in the health service, for instance, are covered by the health service scheme; senior civil servants are covered by the civil service scheme; most people in the nuclear industry are covered by a public sector scheme. It is often forgotten that even in private schools, the staff are actually in a government-backed scheme. There is a lot of debate going on at the moment because the costs for private schools that pay into the Department for Education-funded scheme have increased considerably. None the less, teachers in private schools are covered by a public scheme.
As I said at the beginning, I ask only that the Minister would kindly agree to add this to the agenda. It is a problem that is capable of being solved. It is not quite as simple as my amendment suggests—I accept that—but putting forward this amendment was basically the only way of dealing with the scheme as it stands. Quite a bit of legislation, in the form of statutory instruments, would be needed to cover the way in which any deviation or loosening of the scheme was governed, because it is emphatically not the intention of this amendment to free up pension schemes so that irresponsible boards of directors could award themselves large pensions. This is to do with workers who have paid into a pension scheme for many years and are unwittingly caught by the cap because their employer is unable to fulfil its pension obligations.
Baroness Altmann (Con)
I have added my name to this amendment. I support my noble friend and echo his request to the Minister for a meeting to discuss this issue further. I understand that it may not be possible to arrange immediately, and needs careful consideration, but, given the rulings in court cases and so on, it may be worth trying to address some of these issues, which are clearly causing distress to an important, albeit small, number of people.
Lord McKenzie of Luton (Lab)
My Lords, we have some difficulty with this amendment. We are more than happy to put it on the agenda for a meeting, although I recall earlier sessions when I think the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, convened a meeting with the pilots’ association for us to range over this. At that stage neither we nor the Government were particularly happy with any change—or the sort of change suggested here.
There is an issue about affordability for the PPF that has to be taken into account. We should also bear in mind that funding for the PPF comes from a levy on these other pension schemes, so the higher costs go the greater the hit on those schemes. As I understand it, the proposition is that it would cover not only those who receive a payment in future but all those currently receiving capped payments. It would free up those amounts, too.
I do not know whether the noble Lord has an impact assessment for this proposal; if so, we should certainly see that. Although he partially dismissed it in his speech, when the scheme was designed the moral hazard issue was very much in mind—heavy hitters and senior people in organisations are better able to control the destination of their pension funds and remuneration, and there should be a mechanism in there to ensure that the options were not open-ended. At the moment the cap bites, I think, at something like £40,000, so we are not talking about people with minimal pensions. I think the average payout from the PPF is about £4,000, so there is a big contrast. Having said that, I am more than happy to join a discussion to review these issues—but I am not convinced that we would change our position.
The PPF has done marvellous work over the years, enabling people to receive an income when there would have been nothing. It is a very good organisation. We may check to see whether its view now is different to its view previously, but I doubt it, so the onus is very much on the noble Lord to come forward with an impact assessment to say how much this would cost if we did it. Having said that, we on this side would not be able to sign up to it.
Baroness Altmann
I echo that praise for the Pension Protection Fund. It has been a marvellous success story and has rescued so many people. It is run efficiently and with care for those who claim on it. I cannot praise it highly enough.
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
My Lords, let me begin by thanking the noble Lords, Lord Balfe and Lord Sharkey, and the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, for this amendment. I believe that the intention is to improve member protection in the event of employer insolvency. The amendment would remove the Pension Protection Fund compensation cap currently applied to payments for members who were under their scheme’s normal pension age when their employer became insolvent.
It might be helpful if I first explain that the Pension Protection Fund is a compensation scheme and, as such, was never intended to meet the full pension promise made to every member of a failed scheme. Members over their scheme’s normal pension age and those who were in receipt of survivors’ benefits or an ill-health pension broadly receive full protection. Everyone else receives broadly 90% of their scheme benefits, subject to an overall cap. This means that the cap applies to early retirees as well as deferred members, ensuring that Pension Protection Fund compensation is calculated on the same basis for members of the same age in the same scheme.
It is worth mentioning that the Government are defending the cap before the domestic courts. Their position in this litigation, and current policy, is that the cap meets important objectives and should be retained. First, the cap helps to give greater protection to those who have reached their scheme’s normal retirement age at the time of employer insolvency. These members are likely to have fewer opportunities to supplement their income in other ways. Secondly, the cap helps to control the costs of the fund—costs that may otherwise fall on levy payers. Finally, as we have heard, the cap is intended to encourage people with influence over the schemes to fund them responsibly and to discourage excessive risk-taking. Key decision-makers have an incentive to ensure that their schemes stay out of the Pension Protection Fund because the cap is likely to have a direct impact on the compensation that they would receive.
The level of the cap was set after much research and analysis. The current full amount is around £40,000 at the age of 65. Members under their scheme’s normal pension age initially receive 90% of the capped amount, which equates to around £36,000 at the age of 65. Nevertheless, this far exceeds the estimated average defined benefit pension of around £8,000. Only a few members of the Pension Protection Fund are affected by the cap. The nature of the cap means that it affects predominantly high earners; abolishing it would, therefore, mainly benefit those high earners.
In conclusion, the cap is a necessary and proportionate means of achieving a number of significant policy aims in relation to the Pension Protection Fund compensation scheme. I hope that this provides sufficient reassurance to noble Lords, and I urge the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment. At the same time, we would be more than happy to add this issue to the agenda for our meeting, which has been arranged for Thursday 12 March at 10 am.
Baroness Altmann
My Lords, I support Amendments 83 and 86. Noble Lords have already explained the problems in great detail. However, this crisis dates back more than two years. NHS hospitals and regional authorities have been trying for some time to deal with the fall-out of the taper and to find a resolution, but so far there has been no action. The Government promised action within 30 days last December, and we are still waiting. The doctors and medical staff in this scheme were given a promise, but it has not been honoured because of flawed attempts to save money on pension tax reliefs for so-called high earners. Yet the costs resulting from the unintended consequences of the legislation—I understand the thrust of that legislation—in paying locums, cancellations and inadequate NHS services may well outweigh any savings that might have been achieved by trying to clamp down on high earners.
I was at a BMA consultants’ conference today, giving a presentation on pensions. In a room seating around 400, those consultants decided to have an emergency vote and it was unanimous in favour of urgent government action, such as Amendment 86 being introduced. There was clear anger around the room at what they feel is a betrayal of their terms and conditions of service. They had no warning of the changes in tax relief, which were said to affect only those earning more than £150,000 a year; in fact, the way that the cliff edge and the threshold work means they have hit people earning a lot less than that. They were given no chance to mitigate their losses. In the private sector or in other government schemes some mitigations have been offered, but not for the NHS.
In any case, the rules of this taper make it impossible to predict what tax bill you might incur as a result of being asked to take on extra work because it depends on your current year’s earnings, which you will not know until the end of the current year. The Government could consider using last year’s earnings; at least one might have a fighting chance of knowing what extra work one might be able to take on. The scheme-pays arrangement, whereby it is possible that staff will not have to pay the charge, is a loan at around 6% interest that rolls up every year. Some consultants in their 40s were explaining to me today how that feels so penal. One could imagine changing that interest rate, for example.
The bottom line is that even the NHS pension scheme was unable to provide the staff with the information that they, or their advisers, would have needed to predict what the tax consequences of the work they were doing might have been. If they do not know what the impact will be, it is logical that they are not going to do the work. I understand that the plan in the Budget may well be for the Government to increase the threshold and introduce a bit more flexibility. I can assure the Committee that if that is the plan, it will not solve the problem.
The proposal in Amendment 86 is a practical way in which doctors can be reassured that if they carry out extra work, especially in the current extreme medical environment that we may well be facing, they will not be penalised taxation-wise and pension-wise for doing so. This amendment might not fit precisely in the Bill, but I would be grateful to hear from my noble friends what the reaction is to the proposed method of dealing with this problem. If the Bill represents, as the BMA said in its briefing, a valuable opportunity to find a resolution to this long-running problem then I hope that it will be able to address the issue, and put our NHS and our most valuable medical staff back on an even keel.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, this issue has been rumbling around for far too long and it is time to try to get a solution to it, particularly, as many noble Lords have explained, because of the pressure that the NHS would have been under anyway but for the recent crisis. My noble friend Lord Warner made a strong case with his proposition and we would certainly like to reflect on it. I know that the problem is that lots of people have reflected from time to time on a possible solution. That reflection goes on, but we do not yet have a solution. But Report on this Bill will be coming up shortly, and of course we have a Budget of some sort not far in the distance.
I have a couple of questions. I do not know whether my noble friend Lord Warner or the Minister can help with them. Was the one-off payment that the NHS made to cover the annual allowance taxable, and what might the consequences of that be? Under the scheme-pays arrangement, as the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, hinted, if the problem is the penal interest rate then what is to stop those rates being adjusted, and who controls them?
We also need to bear in mind in all this is that these rules, unless I misunderstand them, have general application in the tax system. We need either to find a way of having some special arrangements or to accept that the adjustments we make here would have to be run for the tax system generally. We will need to work through the consequences of that. I am conscious that this contribution has not added one bit of sense to a practical solution, which is what we need to reach. Maybe, at the end of the day, we simply need to rank the solutions that we have on the table and choose the best, even though that may not be optimisation.
I am sure we all remember the pressure about this—I certainly remember pressure from the old Luton and Dunstable Hospital about it—and the real adverse effect that it causes on the delivery of services. We cannot continue to allow that to go forward; we simply have to drive through a solution to this. That is the challenge; presumably, the Treasury has ultimate responsibility for meeting it. But if it will not then we should, with the help of my noble friend Lord Warner and his expertise in these areas.
Baroness Altmann
I take my noble friend’s point on the specific proposals in Amendment 86 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Warner, which I have signed. However, were the amendment to be redrawn to suggest that an extension of the current arrangements for 2019-20 be brought forward also into 2020-21, would that address my noble friend’s concerns about the unauthorised scheme payment and the charges to the scheme? We could time-limit this but also address the urgency, because even if something is reported in the Budget, it is unlikely that the staff will have the reassurance for the forthcoming tax year, which is only a few weeks away.
Lord Warner
I just want to amplify the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann. Those of us who have been around in government for some years know that the announcement of review reports in Budgets do not necessarily mean that anything in those reviews will be rapidly implemented. My suspicion would be that any such reviews would have a longish period of consultation and would not appear in the next finance Bill—that is a likely outcome. Building on what the noble Baroness said, I need to go back to my clients—if I may put it that way—who will want to know what the position is. If I prove to be right over what happens on 11 March, would the Government be willing to consider something along the lines of buying two to three years for the NHS doctors? Will they help me get the wording right, so that it does not fall into the elephant traps that the Minister has set out? When we get to Report, we cannot just leave this; we have to come back to this issue with some credible solution. I would be delighted if the announcement on 11 March delivered a quick response, but if we do not deliver a response that covers the next two financial years, we will put the NHS in great peril.
Baroness Altmann
“Suitability of pension schemes for automatic enrolment
(1) The Secretary of State must by regulations made by statutory instrument make provision to require that, where an employer makes arrangements by which a jobholder to whom section 3 of the Pensions Act 2008 applies, or a worker to whom section 9 of that Act applies, becomes an active member of an automatic enrolment or other pension scheme, the employer and the trustees, managers and administrators of the scheme have ensured that it is suitable for low-paid jobholders or entitled workers such that they are treated fairly in connection with their contributions. (2) A statutory instrument containing regulations under this section may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment aims to ensure that employers, trustees, managers and administrators have assessed the scheme they use for auto-enrolment to ascertain that it treats low paid staff fairly and does not force them to pay additional contributions to replace tax relief they have lost.
Baroness Altmann
My Lords, noble Lords will understand that I believe that this amendment is vital to the ongoing success of automatic enrolment.
I add my congratulations to the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, for the work that she did with the original Pensions Commission, which set up automatic enrolment. It has been a success. My amendment seeks to build on auto-enrolment by introducing protections particularly for low earners—at least 70% of whom are women—and provides that the Secretary of State must make regulations that require the trustees, managers, administrators and employers of these workplace pension schemes to ensure that the scheme is suitable for low earners and treats them fairly.
I seek to introduce this into the Bill because, currently, more than 1 million women who are earning below the personal tax threshold, which is around £12,500 in any one job, are required to pay—unwittingly and unknowingly in probably all cases—25% more for their pension because their employer has chosen a particular pension scheme that is not suitable for them because it charges them so much extra.
The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, referred to addressing pensioner poverty and undersaving. Clearly, the fact that the lowest earners in the country have an extra 25% added to the cost of their pension, which has to come out of their pay, makes them more likely to have affordability issues and could, potentially, lead to them opting out of the pension because of the extra costs. These are, generally speaking, the people who most need help to build up a pension for later life and who are at greater risk of pensioner poverty. That is what the auto-enrolment system was meant to address, given that we have the lowest state pension in the developed world.
Baroness Altmann
I thank my noble friend for his response. I welcomed, very much, the commitment in the manifesto to look at this issue. However, I hope he will forgive me if I suggest that this is not necessarily a matter just for the Treasury. Tax relief is, of course, a matter for the Treasury but the duties of schemes, trustees, IGCs and employers is a matter for the Pensions Regulator. Also, auto-enrolment falls under the Department for Work and Pensions. Might it therefore be possible—I humbly request this of my noble friend—to go back to the department to consider whether this issue of suitability could go broader than just tax relief? It could include all sorts of other areas: for example, an employer might choose a scheme that the majority of the workforce might not like to be in, but there is no mechanism for them not to be put into it.
If that is considered too difficult, I certainly take the point on low earners. This is a probing amendment and I would, for example, be happy to specify those earning below the personal tax threshold—that is really what we are talking about and it could be addressed. I understand and recognise that there is guidance for employers on the Pensions Regulator’s website but the requirements for master trust authorisation, or the requirements put on IGCs and trustees of these pension schemes, do not include taking any concern for the extra costs imposed on those earning below the personal tax threshold. One wonders how value for money could be confirmed by those running pension schemes if many people in those schemes pay 25% more than they would if they were in an alternative scheme. There is a requirement for a value-for-money assessment but it does not seem to take account of these low-earning women.
I would be delighted to help the Government fulfil their aim of addressing this issue. Notwithstanding that, I would be grateful if my noble friend might consider whether there should be some extra duty. If it is not just on employers—I take that point and I mentioned it in moving the amendment—at the very least the trustees, the IGCs and the regulator know what is going on, even if in most cases the small employer does not. I have seen the wording on the Pensions Regulator’s website; it is not really clear, if you are someone who does not know what this is all about, that actually it means that because of the scheme you have chosen, your low earners will pay 25% more than they otherwise would.
Whether or not we can address this in the Bill—I hope that maybe we can—I am grateful to noble Lords who have supported the amendment. I am also grateful to my noble friends the Ministers, and the department, for having taken the time to continue to discuss the issue. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Altmann
“Multi-employer pensions scheme
The trustees of a multi-employer pension scheme may cancel a debt which became due from a departing employer before the coming into force of this section in relation to the scheme under section 75 of the Pensions Act 1995 if—(a) failure to pay the debt would not materially reduce the scheme’s assets relative to the estimated debt in relation to the scheme,(b) the majority of the debt relates to liabilities in respect of members working for employers no longer participating in the scheme,(c) the employer has not done an act or engaged in a course of conduct that detrimentally affected in a material way the likelihood of accrued scheme benefits being received (whether the benefits are to be received as benefits under the scheme or otherwise),(d) at the time of the cessation of the employer’s participation in the scheme, the scheme was estimated to have sufficient and appropriate assets to cover its technical provisions and the employer had no reason to believe there was a significant scheme deficit,(e) the employer has been operating as an unincorporated business and the owner would face personal bankruptcy, or the employer has been operating as a small business which would become insolvent, if required to pay the debt,(f) the debt is below a de minimis threshold in relation to the size of the overall scheme liabilities, as estimated by the trustees or managers on advice of the scheme actuary as if the whole scheme had been winding up at the time the debt was treated as becoming due, and(g) the employer has always taken all reasonable steps to fund the scheme as demanded by the trustees before the employer cessation event.”
Baroness Altmann
My Lords, perhaps I should apologise for taking the Committee’s time on issues that I feel have an opportunity to be resolved in the Bill. I hope that noble Lords will understand that I am doing this because I want to see pensions work better, and I care passionately about a system which I believe works really well in general. but there are areas that are causing significant problems which we may be able to address.
The issue at hand in this amendment is directly relevant to the Bill. It is about multi-employer pension schemes, where the current legislation has unintended consequences and causes significant damage in ways that it was never designed to do. There may be a way in which we can try to address that. I am not claiming that the wording of this probing amendment will fit the bill, as it were. However, in the plumbing multi-employer pension scheme—the one I have most experience of, but by no means the only one; there are a number of charity schemes as well—the trustees seem to be trying to force good employers into personal insolvency and homelessness to pay into the scheme the cost of buying annuities for workers who never worked for them. This is in a scheme which has always been said to be fully funded, with enough money to pay all its pensions: in the December 2019 employer update it was reported to be funded to 108%. It had an 8% surplus at its last measure. The scheme will not buy the annuities that these people’s homes will be taken away to pay for, while the employers have paid every penny of the contribution ever requested by its trustees.
In this pensions Bill we are dealing, quite rightly, with new measures for the Pensions Regulator to deal with recalcitrant employers, who may have deliberately decided—or the regulator may believe have deliberately decided—not to put enough money into the pension scheme. We are introducing measures which I have tried to build upon in my amendment, which gives reasons why the regulator may not impose a contribution notice, for example, on such a recalcitrant employer. I am trying to look at the conditions we might able to introduce in multi-employer schemes, which go back some time—for example, the ones I have looked at go back to the 1970s—and used to have 4,000 employers. Many of them have been allowed to leave or have failed. Now there are around 400 left. These are responsible for all the people who worked for those thousands of other employers, as well as the very few who worked for them.
I wonder whether we can find ways that mimic the easements for recalcitrant employers to salvage the situation for these often unincorporated businesses, such as partnerships which have been in a family for decades or very small companies. If the owner or the individual retires, they crystallise the Section 75 debt. If they try to pass the business to their son, they trigger the Section 75 debt. If they incorporated from a partnership to a company, they triggered the Section 75 debt but nobody ever told them. The size of the debt they owe is immaterial to the survival of the scheme. I am trying to see whether we can use a materiality test, a solvency test or a reasonableness test to deal with this unintended consequence of Section 75 debt, which had a strong and right purpose: if an employer was to walk away from a pension scheme, it needed to make sure that it had put enough money in to meet its promises to all its staff.
I have tried to introduce conditions through this amendment which would permit trustees not to collect the Section 75 debt. They are: if failing
“to pay the debt would not materially reduce the scheme’s assets relative to the estimated debt”;
if
“the majority of the debt”
owed by the employer is for orphan assets—workers who never worked for that employer, so the main employer could not try to use this provision; if the employer has never tried to avoid the debt or to damage funding; if
“at the time of the cessation”—
the Section 75 crystallisation—the scheme was fully funded on technical provisions; if the employer is unincorporated or a small business, and we may need to add partnerships, and faces personal bankruptcy or insolvency; and if the employer has always paid all the contributions asked for, then the trustees would explicitly be permitted not to collect the debt.
The total debt for the employers which I have seen suffering particularly from this is £7.2 million. That may sound a lot of money, but this scheme is worth well over £2 billion, so whether it collects that extra few million pounds will not make a difference to its solvency and survival in the long term. We seem to have lost sight of reasonableness. I hope we might define the circumstances tightly so that other employers cannot use this provision as a precedent. I completely understand concerns that we do not want it to be used as a precedent. The size of the debt is immaterial, relative to the solvency of the scheme.
I have deliberately worded Amendment 94 so that it follows new Section 58B(2) on page 91 of the Bill. Under that provision, the Section 75 debt or contribution notice will not have to be imposed. It says:
“A person commits an offence only if (a) the person does an act or engages in a course of conduct that detrimentally affects in a material way the likelihood of accrued scheme benefits being received”.
Clearly, in the case I described, in multi-employer schemes that test would not be met for imposition of the debt. The new section continues:
“(b) the person knew or ought to have known that the act or course of conduct would have that effect”.
These employers have paid everything that they were ever asked for and were always told that the scheme was fully funded, so they would never have known that there was a problem. The trustees of the scheme did not even try to collect Section 75 debt between 2005 and the past couple of years. The new section then says:
“(c) the person did not have a reasonable excuse for doing the act or engaging in the course of conduct”.
Again, if someone is paying everything that is due, the size of the debt is not material to the solvency of the scheme and the scheme is not buying annuities anyway, can we not inject some reasonableness? There are already easements but they do not meet these circumstances.
Baroness Stedman-Scott
I thank my noble friend Lady Altmann for tabling this amendment and congratulate her on her tenacity in continuing her campaign to resolve this situation. If we were giving awards for tenacity, she would win, I am sure.
The Government understand the difficulties facing employers in these situations, especially where, in the past, they have taken all reasonable steps to fund the scheme as requested by the trustees. The amendment seeks to amend Section 75 of the Pensions Act 1995 to allow trustees further discretion to cancel a departing employer’s debt in certain circumstances. It raises a number of issues that I will address.
The effect of this amendment would be that every time it is applied, the employer covenant would be weakened, increasing the risk of thousands of members not getting their benefits in full. It is hard to envisage a scenario where trustees could agree to such an arrangement and still be compliant with their fiduciary duty to act in the best interests of scheme members. In particular, the proposals for a new de minimis threshold raise significant issues. Even if the threshold is set at a very low level, it could enable a large number of small employers to depart schemes without payment. The aggregate impact of this could be significant. Passing this level of debt on to employers who remain could make them insolvent.
It is worth noting that some flexibility already exists for trustees to collect reduced employer debts as long as the scheme is funded above a Pension Protection Fund level basis. It is set at this level to ensure that schemes do not place an additional burden on the Pension Protection Fund and, ultimately, the levy payers.
The amendment also proposes that debts could be compromised if the majority of the debt relates to orphan members whose employers no longer remain in the scheme. This would be very difficult for the scheme trustees, who have a duty to ensure that orphaned members’ rights are protected and that their scheme is properly funded. Removing orphan debts from the employer debt calculation would ultimately worsen the scheme’s funding position, putting thousands of members’ pensions at risk.
Further, this amendment would impose different statutory requirements on unincorporated and small employers, creating a number of challenges. For example, if all or the majority of the scheme’s employers were either unincorporated or small, it could mean that none, or very few, employer debts would ever be collected; in the long term, that could create a severe underfunding situation, with all the risks that entails.
The Government’s Green Paper and subsequent White Paper, which was published in March 2018, on defined benefit pension schemes looked very closely at this issue and considered carefully what could be done to relieve the pressure that some employers face from their obligation to pay an employer debt. The White Paper concluded that the existing arrangements in legislation, along with the deferred debt arrangement introduced in April 2018, provide enough flexibility for employers to manage their employer debts. Further, the current full buyout calculation method is the most secure and effective way of protecting members and remaining employers in a multi-employer scheme.
While the Government recognise the difficulty facing companies in managing this debt, they cannot, at this time, offer any easements beyond those already provided for in legislation. However, recognising the many representations that the Government have received supporting a change that would assist employers in this difficult position, we will keep this under review and continue the dialogue.
My noble friend Lady Altmann raised the issue of retired employers triggering a debt and being unable to pass it on. Flexibility in the rules enables retired employers to pass their scheme on to another employer without triggering an employer debt. The scheme has a streamlined, flexible apportionment arrangement, which could help employers in this situation.
My noble friend also made the point that some people find themselves in extreme difficulties, with the potential to lose their home. The employer debt regime is designed to protect employers who remain in a multi-employer scheme. It would be unfair to burden remaining employers with additional unplanned costs to cover the shortfall that would be created by relaxing requirements for one group of employers. The flexible apportionment arrangement currently available in legislation can be used to help unincorporated employers who wish to incorporate.
My noble friend Lady Altmann also asked whether the scheme is fully funded. My noble friend the Minister mentioned that the scheme is fully funded on a technical provision basis. However, I understand that the scheme is underfunded on both a budget basis and a PPF basis. The next scheme valuation is due in April 2020, which will give us a clearer picture of the scheme’s funding position.
I thank my noble friend and other noble Lords for their contributions to the debate on this amendment. I know how important it is to my noble friend, but, on the basis of my response, I respectfully ask her to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Altmann
I thank my noble friend for her response, but I confess to being extremely disappointed with the robust refusal to address the issue. The current easements are not working, otherwise I would not be trying to press this amendment. The deferred debt arrangement does not remove the debt; it just pushes it into the future, so the person will still be made destitute at some point. Trustees are refusing a flexible apportionment arrangement, so clearly that is not an option.
We seem to have lost sight of the materiality issue and of what we are trying to do with the bigger employers. There are already some ways in which trustees can not collect Section 75 debt. I am just trying to extend those very slightly; it will not apply to the majority of employers in the scheme and it will not materially impact on the solvency and survival of the scheme.
I beg leave to withdraw the amendment, but I urge my noble friend to go back to the department to see whether there are any ways in which we might be able to inject some further easement for multi-employer, non-associated schemes, which were never designed to do this to good employers.
Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted
My Lords, in Committee there has been broad resistance by the Government to positive amendments suggesting what could be put in the Bill to give reassurance about many of the issues raised. The Government claim that that needs to be the case to preserve flexibility, but that does not get over the fact that there are very broad delegated powers in the Bill, as pointed out by my noble friend Lord Sharkey on the first day in Committee and by the Delegated Powers Committee. There is no certainty about how far those broad powers will be used. They are not called Henry VIII clauses for nothing, although delegated powers nowadays put Henry VIII in the shade. I believe the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, elaborated on that last year.
This amendment goes the other way. Instead of making suggestions to clarify what needs to be done, it clarifies five things that the Government may not do under the delegated powers. It is, of course, a probing amendment. I could have made a longer or different list, and a couple of matters are in it specifically to enable further discussion. However, despite the probing nature of the amendment, its form is not novel. It has appeared in other legislation, and I believe it appears several times in the withdrawal Act. It is a known way of addressing issues of concern in skeleton legislation. I may have helped it into a few pieces of legislation, but I consider that such a clause should always exist.
I shall take each of my points in turn. Proposed paragraph (a) states:
“Regulations under this Act may not … create a new criminal offence”.
That provision has been used before to constrain broad powers in legislation. A new criminal offence should always come to Parliament in such a way that it can be amended or rejected. I believe there are examples of finding a new criminal offence within a set of regulations with no amendment possibilities; indeed, I have been on one of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committees, and there were examples. That should not happen. It would be a disproportionate use of delegated power—that has been suggested when I have run such a proposed clause—yet it has been used and therefore it is reasonable to suggest that it should not be. In the instance of pensions, and despite the fact that I have argued on this Bill that the criminal offences are not drawn wide enough, so I am certainly not a dud with regard to them, I do not believe that it would be reasonable to make new ones by regulation. The relevant clauses in the Bill are easily wide enough to do that.
Proposed paragraph (b) is about not creating a regulator. There appears to be a strong danger of that here because the wording that enables powers to be conferred on any person could enable the creation of a regulator. I think the wording is “discretion”, but my noble friend Lord Sharkey inquired as to what it meant and the reply came back that it could be any powers to any body, therefore it would enable the creation of a regulator. There is an example of that in Clause 51. If the person who is designated is already a regulator which has been set up under primary legislation, it is not a problem to expand its powers appropriately, but if a new regulator is created, that would be wrong. So why are there clauses in the Bill that are wide enough and of a description that would enable that? My wording here does not capture all the wrongs that could happen under any power to any person provisions, but at least it draws a line.
Proposed new paragraph (c) prohibits the creation of a multi-employer collective money purchase scheme through regulations. I refer back to issues that have already been discussed with regard to problems in the plumber pension scheme. There are other examples of difficulties caused by withdrawals from collective DB schemes. It can come around in particular when large and small employers are put together. Our discussions with regard to collective money purchase schemes have already made it clear that there are issues on which we are still uncomfortable in the context of the employee risk, even in a single CDC scheme. The Post Office scheme is not an everyday case; they will start out with some advantages. There will be even more unknowns in the multi-employer scheme. For example, the pool for risk-sharing is larger, which might seem attractive, but the risk of a larger group leaving is then an awfully large matter for the remaining pensioners to take on board.
Proposed new paragraph (d) is not to
“significantly restrict the powers of trustees”.
I do not mean to override the powers the regulator has to sanction trustees for improper behaviour. I put this point in because there has already been discussion as to whether some of this Bill’s provisions are encroaching on the day-to-day decision-making of trustees—for example, with regard to investment policies. There are noble Lords here who have far more experience of pension trustees than I do, and I particularly value thoughts on the usefulness of this provision. I want to be clear: I am not suggesting that this is anything to do with preventing regulators having the right balance of powers to do things. It is where they would intervene on day-to-day matters.
Proposed new paragraph (e) prevents amendment of primary legislation. I am aware that this is in conflict with the powers the Government have given themselves in Clause 47(5). It is a matter of principle. Pensions are a highly sensitive policy area, and it would be wrong if a Government could selectively change or revoke significant consumer protection provisions without scrutiny at the level of primary legislation. The clause says:
“Regulations under this section may among other things … amend, repeal or revoke a provision of this Part or any other enactment.”
A short while ago, when we were discussing one of the amendments from the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, I think I heard that the Minister did not think there was the power to do certain things. Actually, the Government jolly well have it here, because they can “amend, repeal or revoke” anything they like—any enactment—so I think that was not a valid excuse, if I can put it that way.
Of course, the real problem here is that parliamentary procedures are deficient in that departments have to enter into a bidding process to get Bills and, because of time constraints, they do not come around superabundantly. The only other option, regulations, is not really democratic on the level on which they have become used. It is possible for the Government to do something about that, but it is my view that, until it is done, restraints must be placed on powers in the manner I propose—all the more so when there is lack of policy guidance.
I know we have had exchanges before on whether there is adequate policy guidance. Some of us think there is not, and the noble Earl has said it is all about implementation and the policy is there. I cited Clause 47(5), and Clause 51(3) says:
“Regulations under this Part may … confer a discretion on a person”.
When that was discussed—when the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, raised the clause stand part debate on Clause 51—my immediate scribble was “may not create a regulator”, which was directly in response to what could be covered under “discretion”. That, therefore, is the reasoning. I could give more reasons and find many more examples of where discretion is conferred: a failure to really tie it down to the policies. Given that where helpful suggestions have been put forward that would perhaps have given more reassurance on the true nature and scope have been resisted, there is no alternative but to outline what may not be done. I beg to move.
Baroness Altmann
My Lords, I add my support to many aspects of the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles. She is trying to do something very helpful for the Committee and the Bill. We have all expressed concerns about the wide-ranging powers in this Bill, which seem to go a lot further than normal for such Bills. I recognise that pensions Bills tend to have wide powers added to them, but it makes sense to identify areas where we would not wish the legislation to allow a Minister to do things that would normally come back to Parliament for our scrutiny or further legislation.
Baroness Sherlock
My Lords, I, too, share the aspiration of the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, to constrain somewhat the use of the extensive powers that the Government are blessing themselves through this Bill. I will not, however, reopen that debate in any great detail, although there is a temptation to say “We have another whole hour of Committee, we can debate this at great length”. The danger of a list is that some noble Lords will have concerns about particular aspects, such as constraining trustee power, while some will be in favour of multi-employer collective money purchase schemes. Most of us, however, would have reservations about the ability to amend primary legislation.
Although it may not feel as though Bills come along in super abundance, in the field of pensions it feels like they come along all the time like the number 19 bus, but I take the point. In fact, if we are going to have a list I would like to add to it: I would start with not allowing dashboards to do transactions without covering that in primary legislation. I have a long list in my notes which I will develop at length should we return to this. What might be helpful is if the Minister, in replying, would tell Committee whether the Government intend to do any of these things.
Pension Schemes Bill [HL]
Baroness Altmann ExcerptsWednesday 26th February 2020
(4 years, 2 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Pension Schemes Act 2021 View all Pension Schemes Act 2021 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 4-II Second marshalled list for Grand Committee - (24 Feb 2020)
Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD)
My Lords, I signed the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, and agree entirely with the principle of both these amendments. I was particularly drawn to the notion of having a threshold and notification, as provided by the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Vaux. He circulated it for comment and therefore I signed it after some negotiations with him.
Put simply, if the deficit is large and the effort to close it is too small—smaller than the dividend—the payment of the dividend becomes a notifiable event. The sequel to that would surely be what the noble Lord, Lord Flight, has just pointed out: that it be looked at and perhaps in certain cases, though not all if there are other things that could be taken into account, the dividend payment be stopped. The point is that it is brought to the regulator’s notice, rather than the regulator potentially having to look at an awful lot of dividends and payments being made. Indeed, how will the regulator even find out about them? The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, solves that little loop of how the regulator gets to know about them and has a reasonable number to look at rather than being overwhelmed.
In our negotiations, we tried to find a formula to keep the momentum going to close the gap, even within the five years, as a lot can go wrong in that period. I got as far as something like “the ratio of the dividend to deficit not being greater than the reciprocal of the remaining years and not conveniently commutative”. I concluded that, if I carried on in that way, I would have to put in a job application to Dominic Cummings.
More seriously—I refer here to the helpful meeting I had with the Minister and officials yesterday—I want to see some specific push in the Bill for the regulator to be tougher, including in setting the contribution schedule for paying down the deficits. As has already been explained by other noble Lords, TPR has come forward with a set of principles, but maybe it needs something to back them up and get them over the line in enforcing them.
In the meeting yesterday, it was pointed out that more powers are being given to the regulator in the Bill and that regulations will be forthcoming. That is well and good, but something has to make sure that the regulator is urged to use those powers and to be strong, especially in standing up to larger and more forceful companies and individuals. We know that the record there is not necessarily all that good. The policy impetus needs to come from government and Parliament; otherwise, there may be more power but no enforced policy shift.
We also know that boards will take advice on these kinds of matters and be told what the market norms are, or at least what other companies have done. If the dial is to be shifted, the advice has to be shifted. The way to ensure that advice is shifted is for there to be an indication of the policy in the Bill, because an adviser cannot go against that in their duty to advise the companies.
It was very good to hear that the new offences that we discussed on Monday—which seems a long time ago now—are wide enough to embrace advisers, but you have to get at what their duty is to those they are advising. There are lots of reasons to have something in the Bill to make sure that the principles already outlined by TPR have that backing to be enforced and have that effect. As I said on Monday, it should not be normal to accept overly long continuation of deficits just because a company is well capitalised.
There can be many claims on and reasons for that extra capitalisation—there may be lots of tentative reasons why they need it. There might be plans to spend it to buy another company. All kinds of things could be going on, and what looks like a good capital margin could actually be shoring up many other things as well as the pension deficit. What is the excuse to the Pensions Regulator? What excuse might be given to other sources? Some of the clever analysts may work out what is going on; the ordinary investor and the ordinary pensioner is unlikely to do so. Therefore, I support the principle of both the amendments: something should go in the Bill to push or shore up the Pensions Regulator in its actions.
Baroness Altmann (Con)
My Lords, I rise briefly—I have added my name to one of the amendments—to support the concept that has been so well explained already by noble Lords and to echo the warnings that this is a very important time in our defined benefit pension system, as we still have employers attached to schemes and, in some cases, members contributing. Some schemes are still not completely closed. Once a scheme has closed to new members, it will not be too long before it closes to new accruals and it will effectively be in run-off. While there are still employers with an interest in the scheme and before we get to the period, which will come in the next 10 years or so, when there is no economic interest between the employer and the scheme and it is seen merely as a major liability—with more and more companies looking for ways to get around the deficits—now is the time to be collecting as much money as possible.
Obviously, one does not want to damage the ongoing viability of the employer, but there needs to be more recognition of the fact that the pension scheme is a debtor of the company—not all companies see it in that way—and the choice between dividend payment and deficit funding should not be just between the interest of shareholders and the interest of pension scheme members. The pension deficit has people’s lives attached, so there is a higher importance here.
When one looks at the provisions of the Companies Act 2006, in particular with reference to Amendment 84, Section 830 says that a company should not be permitted to pay out a dividend if it has not made sufficient profit to cover its costs or if there are losses in the company. What is not explicit, but is made explicit in the amendment, which was originally part of my noble friend Lord Balfe’s Private Member’s Bill, is that the accounting measure of the pension deficit does not reflect the actuarial reality as estimated by a scheme actuary, or perhaps by trustees, of the true scale of the obligation—in other words, potential losses—that the company faces. Therefore, redefining the accounting measure and taking account of the actuarial measure would put the payment of dividend on a different plane. That is to be reflected in Section 830A, which would be added after Section 830, in terms of justification for payment of a dividend that might otherwise look viable.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
My Lords, I look forward to hearing what my noble friend the Minister says about this and whether the sort of concerns that have been expressed are already dealt with somewhere else. A very good point has been made.
I want to ask a question on Amendment 27, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Vaux. He talks about the value of the assets of the scheme, and my noble friend Lady Altmann made this point; there is a big difference between an actuarial valuation and an insurance valuation in a scheme. If you were to base this on an insurance valuation, you would catch quite a lot of pension schemes, including those which probably could pay some dividends. I was a little concerned about that, and I would like some clarification when we come to wind up on what is intended.
Baroness Altmann
“72B Provision of information: further provision(1) The Regulator may, by notice in writing, require the trustees of a scheme to which section 35 of the Pensions Act 1995 applies to provide information as set out in subsection (5).(2) A notice under subsection (1) may include a requirement for information—(a) to be disclosed to the Regulator on a periodic basis, and(b) in respect of specified periods of time.(3) Where the provision of information is required by a notice under subsection (1), the information must be provided in such a manner, at such a place and within such a period as may be specified in the notice.(4) The Regulator must publish information provided in respect of the provisions set out in subsection (5) on its website within one month of receiving it in a form that is searchable and easily accessible.(5) For the purposes of subsection (1), information to be provided on request of the Regulator is any information set out in—(a) regulation 29A of the Occupational and Personal Pension Scheme (Disclosure of Information) Regulations 2013 (publishing charges and transaction costs and other relevant information), and(b) paragraph 30 of Schedule 3 of the Occupational and Personal Pension Scheme (Disclosure of Information) Regulations 2013.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would place a reporting duty on the Pensions Regulator to publish statements of investment principles (SIPs) under section 35 of the Pensions Act 1995. The amendment would place a requirement on the Pensions Regulator to create a SIP repository, accessible to the public through its website, so that all scheme members could check their scheme’s investment strategy.
Baroness Altmann
My Lords, I rise to move Amendment 28 in my name in this group and will speak to Amendment 92, to which I have added my name. I also support a number of the other amendments. The noble Lords who tabled them will obviously rise shortly to expound on their own aspects of this issue.
The main area this group deals with is the environmental impacts that pension funds can have. We have £1.3 trillion of pension assets; they can help tackle climate change. Our country will host the COP 26 in December, at which we will have the opportunity to show world leadership in our thinking on climate change and policies to address these issues.
Climate change, as most of us believe, poses a potentially material risk to pensions and financial assets. The insurer Aviva estimates that investors could lose £2.7 trillion from investment value globally due to climate change. I am delighted that the Government have tabled amendments giving Ministers a power to require pension schemes to disclose how they manage climate-related financial risks in line with the more detailed, granular requirements of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures.
I support those amendments, but the Government have said that they will require only large schemes to report in line with the TCFD disclosure requirements. They have not said what “large” means, but I assume it will probably not include schemes with fewer than 5,000 members, for example. These smaller schemes still need to manage the risks to savers’ pensions potentially posed by climate change. Amendment 28 is therefore calling for the Pensions Regulator to create a compliance framework based on a public register of schemes and ESG—environmental, social and governance —investment policies.
In October 2018, the Government changed the law to require UK pension scheme trustees to prepare a policy on how they manage the financially material risks arising from issues such as climate change. Trustees are required to state these policies in their statement of investment principles, a statutorily mandated document which all schemes are required to have. Trustees should have updated these statements by 1 October 2019. Some schemes were required to publish them at that point.
However, the UK Sustainable Investment and Finance Association has reviewed—with the help of the Pensions Regulator—the policies of a representative sample of these UK trust-based pensions. For those schemes, representing 3 million or so savers, its report found clear evidence that “large scale non-compliance” with this requirement exists and that trustees had not been publishing their statement of investment principles. Two-thirds of the schemes in its sample had not published, and of those which had the policies were pretty thin and noncommittal.
It is not exactly clear why trustees are failing to disclose and comply with this new law. The UK Sustainable Investment and Finance Association has suggested that it may be because smaller schemes—schemes with fewer than 5,000 members, let us say—do not have a website, so the administrative burden of publishing these statements and complying with the law has proved overly taxing for them. There has therefore been a recommendation that the Pensions Regulator should be given a duty to obtain these statements of investment principles and publish them on its own website in a central registry. Amendment 28 seeks to insert this into the Bill.
If the Pensions Regulator has the power to obtain and publish these statements of investment principles, it will obviously be able to remove the administrative burden from the schemes. It will also give the regulator a much better ability to monitor compliance with these requirements. It will improve the transparency and scrutiny of the schemes’ policies to manage these environmental, social and governance risks, as well as providing the industry with a resource to find out about and share best practice. Importantly, it would allow scheme members to see their own schemes’ investment policies. These are the reasons why I urge the Minister to consider whether we might be able to insert this provision into the Bill.
The notion of a public register of these statements of investment principles and implementation statements could be a powerful way to drive up trustee awareness of action on the risks arising from climate change. It would allow monitoring and scrutiny of what these schemes currently do better to educate those which may not be compliant—some of these laggards, perhaps —about what the leading trustees and schemes are doing. Campaign groups could scrutinise this. Ministers could also scrutinise and report on the issues that are so important and potentially powerful in allowing our country to be a leader in this field, given the size of our pension assets. They dwarf those of most other countries, particularly in Europe. It could help to fill an important hole in the Government’s overall climate change strategy.
The Government are of course right to mandate that the large schemes are going to do this. As I say, I support the government amendments, but we should also bear in mind that this is a question of protecting all pension savers’ money—not just in the large schemes but in all schemes—from the risk of climate change. Therefore to expose workers in small companies or small schemes to more financial risks from climate change does not seem an effective way forward. We have an opportunity in the Bill to make a real difference. There is scope to help the pensions industry be better able to address the financial risks of climate change and to be better aligned with the interests of savers, who will increasingly be concerned about these issues. This is an opportunity to put our pension funds and pension industry on a more sustainable footing and, if noble Lords will forgive this play on words, it can also include sustainable investments in relation to climate and environmental sustainability.
I have added my name to Amendment 92 in the name of the Baroness, Lady Hayman, and I support Amendments 75 and 89, which talk about requiring schemes to align their portfolios with the Paris agreement objectives. The UK Government need to ensure that pension investment portfolios are aligned with, for example, the UK’s emission reduction targets. Pension funds also need to act to protect their beneficiaries’ savings from these financial risks. For example, research from the leading consultancy Mercer has found that for nearly all asset classes, regions and timeframes, a 2 degree increase in global temperature scenario would lead to much better projected returns than if there was a 3 or 4 degree increase in global temperatures. The requirements in these amendments would not necessarily involve disinvestment from any particular sector; it does not direct how the trustees must invest. It would involve trustees in assessing whether their assets in their portfolios have a clear strategy for, for example, aligning their business model with the UK emissions reduction timeline and taking appropriate action. That would also give the companies clear incentives to develop Paris-compliant business models and invest in low-carbon opportunities, making it much easier for the Government to achieve their own targets.
Amendment 92, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, would help to facilitate this by requiring pension schemes to report against the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures framework. The amendment would ensure that all pension schemes have to report against the same frameworks, so there is commonality here, and, as I say, it does not dictate that schemes have to pursue a particular investment or disinvestment strategy. It would be left to the trustees. Operational independence, which is, of course, an important part of our system for trustees, is maintained. However, the requirement to disclose how the trustees are mitigating climate risk should also help to drive up standards of trusteeship, as well as protecting these assets and enhancing the UK’s global role in tackling climate change and other related issues.
I beg to move, and I look forward to the debate, other noble Lords’ contributions and the Minister’s response.
Baroness Hayman (CB)
My Lords, I added my name to Amendment 28, which the Baroness, Lady Altmann, has just cogently explained to the Committee. I will speak to that, as well as to my own Amendment 52, about the information available for dashboards. I shall also speak to Amendments 74, 75, 76 and 92, which, as the noble Baroness mentioned, seek to strengthen the Government’s welcome Amendment 73, which recognises the salience of climate change to pension funds and to the Bill. I remind the Committee of my interests as co-chair of Peers for the Planet, and that my son works for Make My Money Matter.
Baroness Stedman-Scott
I thank all noble Lords for their amendments and contributions. They have been numerous, but they have been numerous in quality, so I thank them for that. I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, and the whole Committee that we are listening and aim to please.
I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this important debate. In responding, I will first address the three government amendments and then the others in the group. The Government are clear that action needs to be taken to address the risks that climate change brings. The Government announced in the Green Finance Strategy, published last July, that all large asset owners, including occupational pension schemes, would be expected to report on how they address climate change risk, in line with the international, industry-led task force on climate-related financial disclosure, by 2022.
Building on that expectation, the Government are now, through new Clauses 73, 81 and 98, seeking to take powers to require occupational pension schemes to manage the effects of climate change effectively as a financial risk to their investments and to report publicly on how they have done so. New Section 41A inserted into the Pensions Act 1995 confers powers on the Secretary of State to impose requirements on occupational pension scheme trustees and managers to secure effective governance on the effect of climate change on the scheme.
Let me be clear. This does not mean that it is for the Government to direct schemes or set their investment strategies. The Government never have directed pension scheme investment, and do not intend to. Our clear view is that the amendments do not permit us to do that. Amendments 74 and 76, tabled by the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayman and Lady Jones, would amend the new clauses, expanding the remit of these powers and those under new Section 41B beyond occupational pension schemes to include personal pension schemes. Personal pension schemes are regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, not the Pensions Regulator. To place requirements on personal pension providers through the Bill would create a patchwork of overlapping regulatory oversight, under which providers would have to respond to two separate regulators on the same activity.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, raised occupational schemes. The FCA is currently considering how best to enhance climate-related disclosures by workplace personal pension schemes. The noble Baroness, Lady Janke, also referenced personal pensions.
Turning back to the government amendment, the Government believe it is absolutely necessary that trustees act within their fiduciary duty to protect members’ benefits against the growing physical risks of climate change and the risks of the transition to a lower-carbon economy. However, action taken by trustees and managers should not be limited to avoiding risk but should involve consideration of the investment opportunities that climate change presents, as new Section 41A(2) makes clear.
New Section 41A(3) sets out the kinds of activities trustees and managers of pension schemes may be required to undertake as part of their governance on the effects of climate change. Where such requirements are introduced, our intention is that trustees or managers are doing the determination, review and revision of strategies and targets. It is not a matter for the Government. We will consult on the exact requirements, the timings for introducing them and the scheme in scope.
New Clause 92 seeks to bind the Secretary of State to a specific timeline for launching this consultation and publishing the response. I am very grateful to noble Lords for their compliments about the speed of our action on climate change; I must tell your Lordships that our Secretary of State Thérèse Coffey and Minister for Pensions Guy Opperman are 110% behind this. It was their action, not mine, that put this into the Bill, so I cannot take credit for something I did not do; they deserve all the credit for that. I understand the point of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, that we should push further. As my great friend William Booth would have said, that and better will do. I understand the point she is making.
I assure the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayman and Lady Jones, in response to their amendment, that the Government intend to launch their consultation on the task force recommendations upon the Bill completing its passage through Parliament, and to respond within a year.
Amendments 52 and 75 and new Clause 89 specifically identify alignment with the Paris Agreement as one of the risk-assessment activities which schemes should be doing. Our view is that the industry is not quite ready for this sizeable step in reporting requirements. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, raised global warming. Amendment 75 goes further than reporting on alignment to require governance of schemes to align with the Paris Agreement’s objective of global warming of well under 2 degrees Celsius. This would be tantamount to directing schemes’ investments, which the Government have already ruled out. The Government are seeking to ensure effective governance of climate change risk, not to direct trustees’ or managers’ investments.
However, new Section 41A(4) in Amendment 73, taken with new Section 41B, would enable the Government to prescribe reporting on Paris alignment, requiring schemes to consider their alignment with Paris in relation to risk and exposure and to make this information public. At present, there is little consensus on methodologies for reporting on Paris alignment. This area is developing very quickly, which is why the Government are seeking powers to prescribe such reporting in future. We will continue to monitor the development of methodologies and data in the industry, and would put any future proposals on this issue to consultation.
The Government believe that schemes should be doing effective governance, as new Section 41A will allow us to require, and that schemes should publish this information as set out in the task force recommendations. New Section 41B would enable the Government to lay regulations to require this information to be made public, free of charge, including to members.
New Clause 89 would require some of this information on Paris Agreement alignment to feature in the scheme’s published statement of investment principles, or SIP. However, should the amendment be accepted, this would pre-empt the outcome of the consultation. In contrast, new Section 41B of the Government’s amendment takes powers which would enable the Government to introduce publication requirements relating to the degree of Paris Agreement alignment at a later date.
When disclosing information and documents, subsection (3) of new Section 41B in the Government’s amendment requires trustees and managers to have regard to statutory guidance which the department will publish. In requiring schemes to follow this guidance, consistency and comparability across reporting by different schemes will be easier to achieve. Other benefits of publication are ensuring that best practice is shared across the industry and that trustees and managers can learn from those with the most advance climate risk governance.
Amendments 28 and 36 seek to achieve a similar objective by granting the regulator the responsibility to create a repository of statements of investment principles and forcing schemes to provide their SIPs, as well as sections of annual statements, to the regulator. The Government were concerned by the UK Sustainable Investment and Finance Association’s recent research, which showed widespread non-compliance in publishing SIPs. We have urged UKSIF to pass its findings to the regulator, so that it can take swift action. We believe a central repository has a part to play in that, but Amendment 28 does not take into account the growing concentration of the vast majority of members in a small number of schemes. Of more than 5,000 defined benefit schemes, the largest 200 schemes have more than 60% of members. Of more than 3,000 defined contribution schemes, the largest 150 have more than 96% of members. For these members, their own scheme’s website or public pages are the natural places to look for investment information, not a corner of the Pensions Regulator’s website.
Similarly, in relation to Amendment 36, the regulator has already placed the largest schemes under one-to-one supervision and has regular sight of the all the documents referred to. In any event, Amendments 28 and 36 are unnecessary, as I can report that officials at the DWP and the Pensions Regulator have already begun work to identify how a central index of SIPs can be produced. Amendment 97 seeks to put a duty on trustees to consult members each time they review their SIP. However, this imposes unreasonable burdens on trustees. The Law Commission has confirmed in two reviews that trustees are not required to take account of members’ views, although in some circumstances they can. It would be unhelpful to require trustees to solicit member preferences which they had no ability or intention to take into account. Amendments 52, 67A and 67B seek to include information on Paris alignment reporting and consideration of ESG in the pensions dashboard.
We will turn to the dashboard later in Committee, but it is important to highlight here—
Baroness Altmann
I am so sorry to interrupt my noble friend. First, I want to draw the Committee’s attention to my interests as set out in the register in connection with pensions, and to the fact that my son works on sustainable transport and reducing transport emissions. Will the Minister write to members of the Committee about the regulator’s plans for creating a central repository? Will it be comprehensive? If DWP and the Pensions Regulator are working on setting this up anyway, would it do any harm to have this measure in the Bill to make sure that it happens?
Baroness Stedman-Scott
Of course we will be happy to write to answer the questions that my noble friend has raised.
Baroness Altmann
I thank my noble friend for her comprehensive response. I think she can tell from the comments that we would be grateful for some follow-up conversations. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Altmann
I hope my noble friend will forgive me for intervening, but after what he has just said, it is important to put on record that there are potentially significant dangers in launching commercial dashboards at the same time as the publicly funded dashboard. It is likely that that will generate enormous confusion in the consumer. It is entirely possible that consumers will not know which dashboard is which and will be driven to a commercial dashboard, which may not be in their impartial interests. I urge my noble friend to consider carefully that there are really strong and important reasons from a consumer protection perspective to have this publicly funded dashboard first, especially as the Government have devoted so much resource and commitment to providing it.
Earl Howe
I say—gently—to my noble friend that I could not disagree more. I cannot see the risks that she has articulated, given all that I have said about putting the necessary consumer protections in place before anyone makes the first move to launch a commercial dashboard. Having said that, I very much respect her knowledge of the landscape and would be happy to have a conversation with her about the risks that she referred to. But having thought about this in some depth myself, I am satisfied that we will not allow a situation to arise where consumers are confused or put at risk by the multiplicity of dashboards. All the dashboards will show the same information. They will not be allowed to show different information. They may set it out differently, but that does not seem to constitute a risk to the consumer or of confusing the end user.
Subject to those remarks, and despite the lack of clarity around the timing of the matters I referred to, I hope that the assurances I have given are sufficient for noble Lords, and that the noble Baroness feels content to withdraw her amendment on that basis.
Pension Schemes Bill [HL]
Baroness Altmann ExcerptsMonday 24th February 2020
(4 years, 2 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Pension Schemes Act 2021 View all Pension Schemes Act 2021 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 4-II Second marshalled list for Grand Committee - (24 Feb 2020)
Baroness Altmann (Con)
My Lords, I support all three amendments. I have added my name to Amendment 2 —so excellently moved by the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey —which intends that any CDC scheme that is applying for authorisation must have a considered strategy for the long-term intergenerational fairness considerations that we have just discussed. The scheme would need not just buffers—we will talk about buffers in the next group—these would also be required against scheme failure and scheme wind-up. In this case I would prefer to think of these as risk margins, to recognise the long-term risks to remaining members, most particularly if scheme members transfer out. That is the particular aim of my Amendment 7, which would also impose on the scheme, when calculating benefits, a requirement to consider how it will recognise the risks in future years if somebody cashes in the pension today.
The cash equivalent transfer value is not really a benefit under the scheme. If the member is in poor health, for example, they will be selecting against the scheme, because the scheme will assume a certain life expectancy. Some will have less and some more, but if all those who have lower life expectancy transfer out at full value, then clearly the pensions in payment are too high. If they take money when markets are performing well, they may receive more than if they had waited longer and there was a market correction, so the remaining members, again, will bear the cost.
Given that a CDC scheme is designed specifically to pay a pension rather than a lump sum as an alternative, without the same draconian guarantee requirements on employers, to the defined benefit system that we have had traditionally in this country—which as the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, rightly says, is the gold standard—we would not want this to be at the detriment of defined benefit but rather as an alternative to defined contribution. However, those members who transfer out are not placing their trust in the scheme; they are not saying, “I want my pension to come from the scheme,” and they are leaving the remaining members to bear an extra risk. I remind noble Lords that we have seen this in defined benefit schemes with the minimum funding requirement, and also with the rules around scheme surpluses. In the short term it was judged that an amount in the scheme was sufficient to pay a specific level of pension over the long term and it turned out that that was not the case, because assumptions were incorrect, markets changed or demography changed. Therefore, it is wholly inadequate to assume that whatever is happening today should be reflected, for example, in cash equivalent transfer values.
As the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, said, it is not just intergenerational fairness; it will select against today’s pensioners, potentially, because if over the next couple of years markets are weak, pensions will need to be reduced more to reflect people who transferred out at what seemed to be fair value two years previously. I hope my noble friend will consider the thrust of these amendments and perhaps look at whether we can introduce some requirements for schemes when members transfer out or when market values are judged to be at a certain level. Can we insert some risk margins that will protect members who rely on this scheme for their lifetime pension in the future?
Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD)
My Lords, like others, I speak in favour of all three amendments. In fact, I signed Amendments 6 and 7 but too late for it to show on the Marshalled List in respect of Amendment 7. I was one of the many noble Lords who mentioned intergenerational fairness, and fairness more generally, at Second Reading because, as has been explained, a significant number of members, particularly older members but not necessarily just them, transfer out after some good times for investments in the investment cycle. That leaves others bearing the brunt of later down cycles, hence the Ponzi analogy. I am actually not quite sure what “fairness among all members” actually means—it is difficult because of, for example, the different longevities between men and women—but I signed Amendment 6 because that was the closest thing to saying, “You’ve got to look widely at everything.”
I have come to the conclusion that the only way in which you can have fairness is to have some kind of buffer, which we will come to later on, or some kind of risk margin as proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, or maybe both. In the interests of fairness, those who are transferring out should have to take their share of the risk; otherwise, if you are a good market-watcher you could perhaps spot your moment to make your move, and then that is perhaps unfair on the rest.
I, along with others, think that something must be enabled for these measures to be required. It is nice to know that something is already envisaged for the scheme, but there needs to be something for every scheme. There should at least be a requirement for that, and actually I think there should be a permission for things such as buffers and risk margins, rather than a prohibition.
Baroness Stedman-Scott
I thank noble Lords for tabling the amendments. I turn first to the proposed amendments to Clause 14. The fundamental aims of the financial sustainability requirement are to avoid disruption to members through CDC schemes failing because of inadequate financial planning or resources and to ensure that, if a scheme experiences a triggering event, the costs of dealing with that and continuing to run on the scheme for an appropriate time can be dealt with. These costs may include costs of transfer and wind-up, if that arises.
As these will be new schemes, it is possible that the up-front costs of establishing and running a CDC scheme may not be covered in full by the charges paid by members. Similarly, if a scheme experiences a triggering event, it might also find that it has insufficient resources to meet the cost of resolving that event without further recourse to members’ funds. The financial sustainability requirement is intended to protect against these risks.
It is envisaged that there will be a variety of mechanisms for financing these costs. As the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, identified, those are likely to involve support from establishing and connected employers. We will consult on this matter before bringing forward regulations, but a range of options is likely to be available—for example, an amount held in escrow or contingent assets.
Envisaged regulations made under Clause 14(3) will ensure that the regulator has sufficient evidence to satisfy itself that the financial sustainability criterion is met and that members are protected. We intend that these regulations will require evidence of any financial commitment by the establishing employer or connected employers and that the scheme has access to the financial resources it needs, including in the event of employer insolvency. If the regulator is not satisfied that the scheme is financially sustainable, the scheme will not be authorised to operate by the regulator, so it is in an employer’s interest to ensure that its scheme meets the envisaged requirements. We do not intend to require CDC schemes to hold a minimum level of capital to meet relevant cost. If authorisation is to work effectively, the Pensions Regulator must be able to consider the risks posed by each scheme to determine whether adequate mitigations are in place. I believe that that is a fairer and more effective approach.
I turn to my noble friend Lady Altmann’s amendment. It would add to the illustrative list of what regulations may require the regulator to consider when deciding whether the processes used to run the scheme are sufficient to ensure it is run effectively. I appreciate the importance of good systems—
Baroness Altmann
I thank my noble friend. Before we finish on this topic, I hear what is being said but what I was trying to achieve with Amendment 5 was to avoid repeating the mistakes already extant in automatic enrolment schemes. We are setting up a brand-new system, and there seems to be nothing in the current processes which would require checks on data accuracy. The processes mentioned in Clause 16 include records management, in subsection (4)(d), while subsection (4)(b) recommends standards for IT systems’ “quality”. However, there are no processes to verify on an ongoing basis a regular audit of whether the data are correct. We know that data are currently incorrect in a large number of auto-enrolment schemes. Even the modern ones are full of errors.
I am trying to introduce something that would help us learn from experience and avoid repeating the kind of mistakes that we know have arisen. They are not intentional mistakes, but if we put in place right from the start processes which require data audits and, potentially, capital buffers as well, against mistakes that have not been foreseen, we will set up a more robust system for the longer term.
Baroness Stedman-Scott
I thank my noble friend for her intervention. My understanding is that CDC schemes are obviously new and will not carry any legacy data issues, which should lower the initial risk. The focus will be on not cleaning old data but establishing strong processes for loading, managing and maintaining data, with regular checks to ensure that quality is maintained. If that does not answer my noble friend’s point in the way she would like we can deal with it when we meet later in the week, if that is acceptable.
I appreciate the importance of good systems and processes. However, the proposed addition to the illustrative list is unnecessary, as we already envisage that appropriate requirements relating to the accuracy of member data and record keeping will be included in regulations. Schedule 5 of the illustrative CDC regulations provides an early indication of our thinking in respect of member records. However, we will consult to ensure that what is included in the regulations is appropriate and that sufficient scrutiny is applied. We also want to ensure that any requirements are proportionate.
In conclusion, I hope that my statements today and the illustrative regulations deliver sufficient reassurance of our commitment to ensuring that CDC schemes are financially sustainable and that systems and processes for member data are sufficient and effective. With that, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Baroness Sherlock
I think this is a language question. The problem that my noble friend Lady Drake raised at Second Reading and which we are trying to raise here is not about a capital buffer to deal with the intergenerational questions of benefits and payments at a time. It was the equivalent in master trust regulations where the sponsoring employer has to put money up front in a safe place so that if things go wrong and the scheme collapses the fallout can be funded without raiding members’ benefits. I think the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, is describing something slightly different.
Baroness Altmann
I hope I can intervene helpfully. This is allied to the issue of data. If a scheme has to wind up, the biggest cost is the administration, and the likelihood of a scheme with poor data records needing to take money from members’ pensions to meet the very high costs of administration when a scheme is failing is much greater. That goes back to the original reason for suggesting that we need a buffer that can cater for the disaster scenario. It is like an insurance policy so that if things have gone horribly wrong with that scheme, members do not potentially end up with no pension because there is something that we have set up from the beginning that can help fund the costs involved and there are systems and processes to check regularly that data are correct along the way which would mitigate the costs of going back over many years and trying to resurrect records.
Baroness Stedman-Scott
I am advised that we are confident that that will be the case.
Baroness Altmann
In that case, I seek clarification on what would happen if the employer became insolvent. There would still be the same problem that members’ pots would be needed to cover the costs of wind up, because they could not be got from the employer. If there is not a capital buffer up front and we rely on waiting to recover it from the employer, we may still end up with the same kinds of errors that we had in defined benefit schemes, where there was nobody to get the money from and the members ended up with potentially no pension.
Baroness Donaghy (Lab)
In the absence of knowledge in this area I have had to resort to listening to the debate. I think the consultation is important. We need to be clear what the headroom is, what the buffer is and whether the headroom is to take account of inflation, as the Minister says. Taking account of inflation has nothing to do with sustainability, emergency action or catastrophes of other kinds, so we need clarity about, first, what questions are asked in the consultation and, secondly, what responsibility is taken.
It is all very well saying that the regulator will look at this and make sure it is sustainable, but I am not sure that the history of the Pensions Regulator gives me a good night’s sleep. I apologise if I have got it wrong, but there seems to me to be a bit of confusion about what this headroom or buffer is for, who takes responsibility for it and how the Pensions Regulator will keep a look out. It is not clear to me that statutory instruments will do it. However, if the Minister is confident that they will, we need to see them.
Baroness Altmann
I support my noble friend’s proposed amendment. He has raised an important issue here. Once again, it is about pre-empting a problem that we have seen elsewhere and not importing it into brand-new legislation. The pause order and triggering events that might permit some protection against people transferring out inappropriately will arise only if the scheme is in trouble and the regulator has already picked that up. That will be a number of steps down the line.
I wholeheartedly agree with what my noble friend said. Before transferring out of a defined benefit scheme, one is required to take advice if one is losing a meaningful lifelong potential income—not guaranteed, but potential. That protects members and potentially the scheme. If there are risk margins in transfer values, members should also have somebody talk them through what they might imply for them. Given that the aim of the CDC scheme is to deliver a lifetime pension, having the same requirement for advice as we already have in defined benefit schemes does not seem overly draconian. I am not saying this is necessarily the right wording or optimal route for a CDC scheme, but the aim of this amendment to protect members has merit. I would be grateful if my noble friend and the department might consider introducing it.
Viscount Eccles
My Lords, I say in support that, if I were a trustee of a pension scheme, and one, two or more people wanted to transfer out, I would be extremely unhappy if they had not taken independent financial advice. I would see that as a necessary condition of coming to the deal that we were possibly coming to.
Lord Hutton of Furness
The noble Lord, Lord Vaux, has drawn attention to an important issue. The wording of Clause 15, which deals with communication requirements that the Pensions Regulator has to be satisfied with, is all about the systems and processes of communication. I accept that that is important but so is the content of the communication. The issue of risk, and who carries the principal burden of risk in a collective defined-contribution scheme, is central. Anyone who has followed what happened in the Netherlands a few years ago will be aware of the enormous sense of disappointment, anger and, I think, surprise that many of the scheme members felt when their pensions in benefit were reduced. No one thought that was possible but of course it was, because, at the end of the day, collective money purchase schemes are, as the noble Lord said, collective defined contribution schemes. The risk is entirely on the scheme member; it is not on the employer at all. No guaranteed promises are being made to scheme members about what their retirement benefits will be.
The issue of the content of the communications that the scheme must make available to its members is just as important as the systems and process of communication. It is a mistake in the Bill for the emphasis to be placed on just the systems and processes, as it is, with no acknowledgement of the importance of the content.
Baroness Altmann
My Lords, I added my name to the amendment moved comprehensively by the noble Lord, Lord Vaux. I want to add a few points.
As many of us said at Second Reading, communication is one of the key issues of this type of pension scheme, especially in a country that is used to traditional defined benefit schemes, which were thought to offer guaranteed pensions—and have done so in most cases. This is completely different. Indeed, it relates to the idea of capital buffers and some kind of insurance. If there are no buffers and there is no insurance and things go wrong, it is entirely possible that the member will get no pension from this type of pension scheme. Will that concept of risk be explained to members? Will it be explained to members who may, as my noble friend Lord Young said, be transferring into a CDC scheme?
The aim of this scheme is to offer lower-cost administration and better returns on the investment than an individual defined contribution scheme because of the economies of scale and access to a wider range of assets—perhaps also with more individualised professional management of the scheme as a whole—and to offer better income prospects than what an individual would achieve through buying their own annuity, with all the risk and profit margins involved in that transaction. Communication to the members that this does not guarantee a pension and that there are no pension rights in this CDC scheme will be crucial. Explaining to members, who will be contributing their own resources, what this means—not least to Royal Mail members, whose guaranteed defined benefit scheme was ultimately picked up by the taxpayer and then moved into a new type of defined benefit scheme that was considered unaffordable by the new body and is being replaced by this scheme—needs to be an integral part of establishing the scheme.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, for raising this important issue. I hope that my noble friend will take it on board.
Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted
My Lords, I have no objection to making things the same everywhere, but last time I came across this 0.75% cap I did not ask a question, so I will now. What exactly does it cover? Compared to some SIPP investor platforms and so forth, it seems rather high. Does it cover all the trading charges as well? You can get 0.15% from Vanguard, 0.25% from AJ Bell and up to 0.45% with all your trading charges covered from Hargreaves Lansdown. I could go on. If you go to some of the insurance companies —I will go on—they tend to be greedier, up to 0.3%, but that is far short of 0.75%, so what is this paying for?
Baroness Altmann
I shall raise similar points. Will ask my noble friend say how the 0.75% charge cap was arrived at, given that the purpose of the CDC scheme, as I understood it, is to provide members better value than if they had their own defined contribution fund and to benefit from the economies of scale of collective management and administration, which clearly should be much lower per member than an individual defined contribution scheme?
Another point my noble friend mentioned is that that there should be no exit penalty. If that were the case, the issue we were discussing earlier about potentially reducing or applying a risk margin to transfer values would become impossible. Intergenerational fairness, which we were concerned about in our earlier discussions in Committee, may be undermined if there is an express prohibition on what may be called an exit penalty, but which to others is a risk margin or buffer against future market dislocations or changed assumptions.
Baroness Stedman-Scott
The noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, asked what the cap covers. This is defined in the regulations, and we will send details to all Members of the Committee. We will consult on 0.75% and the final level of the cap, as part of the regulations, so there will be more opportunity for noble Lords to influence that. The noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, raised the exit penalty. I will have to write to her on that.
Pension Schemes Bill [HL]
Baroness Altmann ExcerptsTuesday 28th January 2020
(4 years, 3 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Altmann (Con)
My Lords, I declare my interest as set out in the register of interests and warmly welcome my noble friend to the Front Bench on the Bill. I certainly agree that this is far more than a morsel: whoever called it that had not quite seen its scale. I warmly welcome it.
My remarks will be mostly framed from the perspective of members of pension schemes, customers of pension providers, and their interests, being future pensioners. Part 1 on collective defined contribution, is adding a new type of pension scheme with the concept of a target pension. As the noble Lords, Lord McKenzie and Lord Sharkey, mentioned, it is important that people realise that this is not one of the two current systems. It is not a money purchase system, where there is no guaranteed outcome and members shoulder all the investment risk and costs, whatever the final outcome. Nor is it a non-money purchase scheme, where there is some element of guarantee: either the traditional defined benefit with an assured lifetime pension income—although that can be reduced in the PPF—or the assurance of a lump sum payment, where employers bear some of the risk and the costs, beyond just their contributions.
The aim of this scheme is to ensure that employers know the limits of their liabilities. That means that the huge challenge with the CMPSs, as they will be called—we have added another acronym to our arsenal—will be communications to explain the lack of security that these schemes will provide.
The shouldering of investment risk and the intergenerational risks is vital for us to help members to understand. As with the Netherlands and Denmark, as the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, mentioned, CDC pensions can reduce when in payment. The risk is still on the worker. Although the scheme will bear the cost of the actuarial analyses, and will look after the management of investment choices and the decumulation options for some members if they stay, there are still residual risks. The Bill is not yet sufficiently robust on what regulatory protection there should be for members’ money. Of course, Royal Mail, which is expected to be the first scheme using this CDC structure, may be a powerful and well-resourced employer.
I am pleased that Clause 7 requires the authorisation of these schemes and that Clauses 11 to 17 suggest that there will be criteria but, as other noble Lords have said, we need to know what those criteria are and what attention will be paid to a situation where authorisation is withdrawn, as proposed in Clause 26. We also need to know what provisions we need to put in place at this stage if the scheme needs to wind up and members’ pensions must be raided to cover the costs of the wind-up, to make sure that members do not end up with no pension—as could happen in theory, although I hope not in practice. We need some more robust underpinning and assets set aside to cover the cost of a wind-up, or some kind of insurance could be embedded in the Pension Protection Fund.
Having seen this before, I know that there are risks. So what risk margins will be retained for future market falls? This is particularly relevant to Clause 25 where members will apparently have a right to transfer their benefits, but these are not accrued pension rights. They do not have accrued rights to an income. So what reserving requirements and risk margins need to be applied to members who want to transfer out on the basis of their rights to a particular portion of the fund today, which may then leave future members and those who do not transfer out—those who are trusting the scheme, if you like—at risk of having reduced pensions later on because those who transfer out today took more than they would ultimately have been entitled to?
Part 3 deals with the regulator’s powers. I fully support the idea of giving the regulator extra powers—its statutory duty to protect scheme benefits is certainly important—such as the power to intervene sooner and the power to demand information. At the moment, the regulator can ask for information but it must use its powers before it can require that, so I warmly welcome this measure.
The aim is to focus on forcing employers to fund these schemes in full but, as we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, and others, the annuity cost of these schemes are way beyond the ongoing costs of running them. So the ongoing funding and the technical provisions of these schemes are well below what would be required in buying out with an annuity. Even certain billionaires have been allowed to walk away without meeting Section 75 debt. Just paying an initial starting pension means that the future pensions will be lower, which recognises some of the problems that exist in the annuity market today as a result of quantitative easing and its impact on the cost of buying so-called secure or risk-free long-term assets.
I support the aims, but perhaps my noble friend will consider whether we need to look at the issue of Section 75 debt as well because it is imposing draconian costs. I want particularly to raise the issue of the plumbing pension scheme. In this case, employers are being asked to pay money they do not have without selling their own homes and losing everything they have built up over their entire lives in order to fund Section 75 debts for an event that they were never warned about, which is their retirement and which apparently crystallised these debts, and yet the scheme is supposedly fully funded. There has been no deficit recovery and all the dues have been paid. I urge my noble friend to facilitate a meeting to discuss this issue and consider whether some of these problems can be dealt with in the Bill.
I fully support the aim of having a pensions dashboard, but I fear that the Government have severely underestimated the challenge facing the Money and Pensions Service in delivering any kind of comprehensive pensions dashboard. It needs to include charges and the information that members would actually like to see, as called for by Which?, but the Bill seems to imply that the Government believe that the existing regulatory framework will provide appropriate consumer protection. I have serious concerns about that. There are more than 12 pension regimes with different subsets of those regimes, legacy schemes which have guaranteed annuity rates, protected tax-free cash and death benefits. All of these need to be identified on a dashboard before members decide whether they want to transfer money or consolidate their benefits. We need to make provision for that.
There are masses of manual records in the depths of life assurance companies and pensions administrators, so I fear that the powerful financial institutions may not wholly support the dashboard, especially those which have bought closed books of past pensions. The cost of transferring millions of partial manual records on to a platform on an electronic database has not been adequately appreciated. I would therefore welcome my noble friend asking her department to consider mandating the simple statements that are currently being consulted on. These could be sent out to everyone in a standard format as the very minimum requirement to facilitate a comprehensive dashboard, regardless of whether they are immediately provided in an electronic format. The Money and Pensions Service could work together with the consultation team to make sure that a dashboard-compliant annual statement is produced so that the data can be merged. Of course, any commercial pensions dashboard needs to be properly regulated and authorised. I have severe concerns about this being used as a marketing tool, which may not be in the best interests of the members.
There is also the issue of DB funding and transfer rights, along with the allied problem of scams. Of course we must put duties on trustees and managers to facilitate transfers where members want them, but I support what the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, was saying about how best to protect those members who have potentially fallen for a scam, which is usually the result of a cold call, against transferring their pensions out of the scheme and then regretting it later. Perhaps we could put conditions on the transfer rights that would ideally trigger an automatic referral to Pension Wise. Its representatives could go through questions with the individual to help identify whether it is likely to be a scam. Or, at the very least, it would require the trustees to ask those questions themselves, which to be fair are not that many, such as, “Are you trying to transfer out as the result of a cold call? Do you know the people who are recommending you to transfer? Do you know anything about the scheme that you want to transfer to?” Those would raise red flags and thus would immediately help to protect members from what we all want to ensure does not happen. We must not forget how many hundreds of billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money is in these pension schemes from the tax relief they receive over the years. That money was given to make sure we do not have problems of having to support poor pensioners.
I implore my noble friend to look at a couple of other issues dear to my heart; I know a number of other noble Lords have alluded to them. Number one is the problem of net pay pension schemes and whether we can put in this Bill a duty on trustees and the regulator to ensure that any member automatically enrolled in a pension scheme is enrolled in one that is suitable for them—in other words, not one that charges the lowest earners 25% extra for their pension, which a net pay pension scheme currently does. Finally, there is an issue with the National Health Service Pension Scheme. It might be worth pursuing whether we can look at putting any of this problem into this Bill to help sort out on the scheme-pays side for the NHS.
I stress that I welcome this Bill. I am delighted that we are looking at all the measures in it; it is a very large piece of legislation. I look forward to hearing from my noble friend and to discussing it further in Committee.