Pension Schemes Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Altmann and Lord Sharkey

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard) & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 30th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharkey (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I shall speak briefly to government Amendments 1, 3 to 7, 9 to 12 and 14 to 31, as well as to my related Amendment 2. First, I thank the Minister and her team for their close engagement with us on the Bill and their time, patience and occasional willingness to change their minds.

The government amendments are a good example of mind-changing. As the Minister said, they remove the instances in Part 1 of first-use-only affirmative procedures; that is a very good thing. The DPRRC’s report on the Bill in February this year was concerned about the use of these procedures. It pointed out that the powers in the regulations remain exactly the same on subsequent use. In Committee, I strongly urged the Government to remove this type of procedure; I very much welcome the fact that they have now done this. All the subsequent uses of the negative procedure have been withdrawn by these amendments.

However, one negative procedure remains: what is left of Clause 11(8) in line 18 on page 7. This is the subject of my probing Amendment 2. Subsection (8), as amended by government Amendment 3, prescribes the negative resolution procedure for regulations under Clause 11(2)(e). Subsection (2)(e) seems a little opaque. It seems to allow the Secretary of State to add persons or categories to those whose fitness and propriety TPR must assess. On 22 June, the Government confirmed to me in writing that this was the case. They believed that this was largely an operational matter and that the negative procedure provided

“appropriate scrutiny as well as opportunity for debate if desired”.

This is a mischaracterisation of the negative procedure, which in practice barely merits the label “scrutiny” at all. Possibly because I did not ask them to, the Government did not address why subsection (2)(e) was necessary at all or give examples of what kind of persons or categories of persons are envisaged in subsection (2)(e) and what role they may play in the schemes themselves. Any additional involvement of these persons or categories of persons may give them significant influence over the conduct of the schemes.

It is obviously desirable to have these new entrants assessed for fitness and propriety. The issue here is the Secretary of State’s decision to add persons or categories to the list without constraint, restriction or proper scrutiny. I would be grateful if the Minister could address these points when she replies.

[Baroness Altmann (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I very much welcome the Government’s amendments to this Bill and congratulate my noble friend on her initial speech, in which she so clearly explained what the Government intend to do. I also congratulate her on the way in which she has engaged with Members across the House and, together with the Bill team, has listened to the concerns expressed at previous stages of this Bill. I particularly welcome the change from the originally proposed first-use-only affirmative procedure and the comments made by my noble friend on the importance of, for example, the cooling-off period before pension transfers occur.

I must admit that I also support Amendment 2 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey. I share his concerns and would welcome an explanation, such as he has requested from my noble friend when she comes to respond, of why only this area—assessment of whether somebody is fit and proper to run a CDC scheme—should be left to the negative resolution procedure and be wholly at the discretion of the Secretary of State without what we would normally consider to be appropriate parliamentary scrutiny in this important area. The CDC framework is completely new for this country. I therefore think that colleagues across the House who have expressed the same concerns are right in suggesting that it is important that we have as much scrutiny as possible.

I have an amendment in this group—Amendment 13—regarding the accuracy of pensions data that needs to be submitted to a CDC scheme. I will not move it at this stage; I will come back to this subject during debate on a later group with my other amendments.

I welcome the current government proposals and hope that my noble friend will listen to some of the concerns expressed. I look forward to hearing contributions from other noble Lords and colleagues as we go forward in this debate.