Pension Schemes Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Vaux of Harrowden and Baroness Janke

Consideration of Commons amendments & Ping Pong (Hansard) & Ping Pong (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 19th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Vaux of Harrowden (CB) [V]]

My Lords, as there are no counterproposals to these Commons amendments, I shall try to brief, but there are a couple of points I would like to make in relation to Commons Amendments 1, 2 and 3.

Throughout the passage of the Bill, we have had lengthy discussions around the risk of unfairness, intergenerational or otherwise, that is inherent to collective money purchase schemes, or CDCs as they seem still to be called. I regret that the Government chose not to accept the amendment which required trustees to make an assessment of the extent to which a scheme is operating in a manner fair to all members; it has been removed by Commons Amendment 1. That seemed a fairly uncontroversial concept. However, the Minister has been very clear that the Government acknowledge the risk of unfairness, that they intend to learn from experiences in other countries, such as the Netherlands, and that they intend to deal with this issue in the regulations that they will publish in relation to Clause 18.

Commons Amendments 2 and 3 remove the amendments your Lordships agreed to in relation to pensions dashboards which required that there should be a period during which pensions dashboards are initially restricted to the MaPS dashboard and that they should not become transactional platforms without primary legislation. On the second point, I remain quite uncomfortable with the idea of a pensions dashboard becoming a transactional platform without very serious thought and experience. However, these matters will also be dealt with by regulations and I am confident that the Minister has heard the concerns that have been raised, even if she does not agree with the proposed method of dealing with them.

The Minister has been very generous with her time and commendably willing to meet to listen to and discuss concerns throughout the passage of the Bill. As a result of changes made to the Bill as it passed through your Lordships’ House, most of the regulations that will follow will be subject to the affirmative procedure. However, even under the affirmative procedure, it will not be possible to amend regulations. I therefore urge the Minister to continue her constructive and collaborative approach in relation to the regulations that will now follow by consulting across the House before draft regulations become set in stone. That way she will be able to take advantage of the very deep pensions knowledge and experience in this House and the regulations will be all the better for it.

[Baroness Janke (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her clear presentation and her response to the issues raised during the passage of the Bill, as expressed in these amendments, which were based on concerns about protecting members of the public from criminal scams and malpractice and about minimising potential risks and threats to the value of pension schemes.

The amendments sent to the other place for consideration related, first, to the wish to ensure fairness, particularly to younger and newer members of the new CMP schemes; and, secondly, to the protection of pension scheme members from scams and exploitation in the operation of the dashboard by preventing financial transactions on it and by allowing the operation of the public dashboard for one year before allowing private sector models.

I understand from the Minister’s opening remarks that the concerns of the movers of those amendments have been at least partially addressed by Ministers. However, I support the proposal from the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, about consultation across the House before the regulations are drafted for consideration. Once the Bill is passed into law and these measures come into operation, we expect that they will be closely monitored and that if further concerns arise they may be reconsidered during the passage of regulations at a later stage. In view of this, we are not proposing to pursue these amendments further.

The fourth amendment concerns the need for different treatment of open and closed schemes and is the subject of further amendments today. My noble friend Lady Bowles will address the important issues raised when this amendment is considered in the next group.