Pension Schemes Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord McNicol of West Kilbride and Lord Young of Cookham

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

[The Deputy Speaker]

I have received no requests for noble Lords to speak, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Young.

[Lord Young of Cookham [V]]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have taken part in this debate, not least my noble friend Lord Howe for his response to the issues raised. I repeat the welcome given by all those who spoke to the government amendments, which in effect oblige MaPS to provide a dashboard. I make it clear that I do not propose to press any of the amendments in my name to a Division.

On identity, I note the new joint unit between DCMS and the Cabinet Office to come up with a digital verification process. It sounds a little like the exercise that was started in 2014 to initiate the Verify programme, which had the same objective. I only hope that this initiative is more successful.

On funding, there was a sentence in my noble friend’s response that I did not have time to write down in full, but it sounded as if it came from the Treasury: that funding options would be considered as part of a range of solutions. I would like to look a little further at that, but I welcome the reassurance that there will be no charge to the consumer. I am grateful that he recognised the importance of getting the identity verification process right as a precondition for a successful dashboard.

On the date, I say with respect that we heard a lot from my noble friend about “day one” but nothing about “day when”. We are no further forward in having any idea as to when the pensions dashboard will be up and running. I look forward to the six-monthly progress reports and I welcome what he said about recognising the urgency of getting the system up and running.

I think that we had a new commitment from my noble friend this evening which I welcome, which was that no one would be able to provide a pensions dashboard before MaPS. I am not sure that we have had that before. I wonder whether there will be some legislative underpinning of that commitment, which I would very much welcome.

The bulk of the debate was on Amendment 63. The majority of those who spoke, led by the noble Baronesses, Lady Drake, Lady Janke and Lady Sherlock, my noble friend Lady Altmann, and the noble Lords, Lord Vaux and Lord Sharkey, all wanted, in the interest of consumer protection, MaPS to have a head start so that it could be trialled and tested. My noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe put the contrary view that there should be a more market-based approach to the dashboards without an inside track for the public sector. I do not propose to support the amendment in a vote, but my view is that it would be best if MaPS made it absolutely clear that it plans to be up there, using all its advantages, ahead of the field to set the pace. However, I understand the arguments and I suspect that when it comes to a Division the Government may be obliged to rethink whether this is something they really want to go to the stake on, or whether it is something that they can live with. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 53.