All 2 Debates between Lord Vaux of Harrowden and Baroness Neville-Rolfe

Tue 30th Jun 2020
Pension Schemes Bill [HL]
Lords Chamber

Report stage (Hansard) & Report stage (Hansard) & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords & Report stage

WhatsApp: Ministerial Communications

Debate between Lord Vaux of Harrowden and Baroness Neville-Rolfe
Wednesday 8th March 2023

(1 year, 9 months ago)

Lords Chamber
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Baroness Neville-Rolfe Portrait Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
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I feel that that is completely impractical. We live in a modern world, where people use WhatsApp, private mail and SMS. What we need to do is have sensible rules and training for Ministers and parliamentarians to teach them what they can do and what is risky. I personally had an excellent briefing on my first day as a Minister at the Cabinet Office. I was given my own devices and was told about the risks of social media in a way that I found encouraged me to conform very closely.

Lord Vaux of Harrowden Portrait Lord Vaux of Harrowden (CB)
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My Lords, is it appropriate for a Minister to hand a cache of WhatsApp messages—government messages—to a journalist for personal gain?

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Portrait Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
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I will not be drawn on the individual case, but I will point to what the Government are doing and also refer the noble Lord, who is a friend, to the Covid inquiry. My understanding is that Mr Hancock has said that he will ensure that all appropriate material is given to the inquiry, and I understand that the Department of Health and Social Care is ensuring just that.

Pension Schemes Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Vaux of Harrowden and Baroness Neville-Rolfe
Report stage & Report stage (Hansard) & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 30th June 2020

(4 years, 5 months ago)

Lords Chamber
Read Full debate Pension Schemes Act 2021 View all Pension Schemes Act 2021 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 104-I Marshalled list for Report - (25 Jun 2020)
Lord Vaux of Harrowden Portrait Lord Vaux of Harrowden [V]
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My Lords, I support all three amendments. The grouping is slightly odd, mixing the question of transactions with that of data accuracy; there is a relationship but it is only tangential. The noble Baronesses, Lady Drake, Lady Altmann and Lady Bowles, have already explained the reasoning for the amendments so I shall try to be brief.

Amendment 52 would prevent a dashboard service from engaging in financial transactions. The matter has been well explained by the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, so I will just say that the risks around pension-related transactions happening without proper advice are very well known. Dashboards are being created primarily for the purpose of allowing people to obtain better information about their situation. That information will be helpful when deciding whether to carry out some transactions but it does not in any way negate the need for proper advice, so allowing dashboards to become transaction platforms would make ensuring that proper advice had been taken much more difficult. At least until they have been fully established and the implications well understood, it really must make sense to prohibit dashboards from becoming transactional platforms.

The other two amendments along with Amendment 13, which was discussed in the first group, are about establishing appropriate processes to ensure the accuracy of the data on the dashboard. It almost goes without saying that a dashboard containing inaccurate information may actually be more damaging than no dashboard at all; I apologise for the echo of something else there. These dashboards are intended to help people and their advisers to make decisions about their future pensions. Inaccurate data will lead to wrong decisions being made. It is therefore critical that data must be fully and regularly checked and audited, so I urge the Minister to accept these amendments.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Portrait Baroness Neville-Rolfe [V]
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My Lords, as noble Lords know, I am as concerned as anyone with consumer protection. I therefore welcome the amendment which we have agreed to during the passage of the Bill to ensure that the Money and Pensions Service provides a public-owned dashboard. That was a great step forward, and we will come on to that on the next amendment.

However, I fear that this amendment could stop commercial experimentation, which is desirable if properly regulated. As I understand it, any organisation providing a pension dashboard must achieve authorisation from the FCA. Innovation is important and can help consumers and pensioners. If the amendment were passed, it could have a chilling effect and prevent innovation until another Bill had cleared Parliament—not, I suspect, a welcome prospect for HMG after the extent of the amendments made to this Bill.

I have a question for the Minister. I am a little concerned about compliance with GDPR, which obviously is important in securing equivalence in the EU context, where portability is a key requirement. I wonder if the amendment could run us into any trouble on that aspect of regulation.