Pension Schemes Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Altmann and Baroness Drake

Ping Pong (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 5th April 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Drake (Lab)]

My Lords, the Bill, in strengthening the regulation of master trusts, is indeed welcome. I noted that a recent release by the ONS on funded pensions and insurance in the UK national accounts referred to the significance of the establishment of DC master trusts, so in general there is increasing recognition of the importance of having fit-for-purpose regulation of master trusts. However, the government amendments in this group raise certain questions that I would like to put to the Minister.

Amendment 2 to Clause 9 simply deletes the provision for a funder of last resort. That is disappointing. Will the Minister update the House on what further action the Government have taken since the Bill was last considered by this House to address the protection of scheme member benefits in the event of a master trust winding up with insufficient resources to meet the cost of complying with and obligations under the Bill? The noble Lord, Lord Freud, implied that there was ongoing work and discussions with the industry, so it would be helpful to know what actions have been taken.

The other government amendments in this group, to Clauses 25 and 34, addressed the issue of allowing, in a wind-up on failure, the transfer of scheme members and their benefits to a receiving scheme that is not a master trust—for example, a group personal pension. While not wanting to disagree in principle with widening the pool of schemes to which transfers can be made, I think that that change to the Bill raises some questions. Given that the Pensions Regulator will be authorising a transfer to a scheme that has not been subject to the master trust authorisation regime, how will it satisfy itself that the receiving scheme on transfer is both sustainable and well governed?

The Bill provides under Clause 34 for a prohibition on increasing or imposing new charges on members by either the transferring or the receiving scheme in order to meet the cost of resolving failure. As a non-master trust receiving scheme will not have been subject to the authorisation regime and the continuity and implementation strategy requirements in the Bill, how will the Pensions Regulator apply the prohibition on increasing charges and police it after the transfer of members to a non-master trust, given that the receiving scheme will not be in its regulatory jurisdiction?

Government Amendment 13 provides for regulations to allow for transfers from a master trust to a contract-based scheme. Given that the transfer will be from a trust to a contract arrangement, do the Government consider that there are any special considerations that the regulations will need to address? If so, what are they?

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome much of the thrust of the Bill. I am also delighted to see Amendments 3 and 4, which, I hope, ensure that insured master trusts will not be forced to separate from their insurance parent, which would have forced them to face higher costs and reduced the security of their members. I am very grateful to my noble friend for taking on board the comments made during the Bill’s passage through this House.

It strikes me that Amendment 2 should be considered separately from those to which it has been joined. I reiterate my strong concern—notwithstanding the reassurances from my noble friend—about leaving out Clause 9. I understand that there is a view that it is unnecessary and that the new regime will ensure that master trusts have sufficient resources, are financially sustainable and have capital adequacy in place. However, even with new schemes and the best will in the world, capital adequacy tests may prove inadequate. No provision in the Bill would cover members of a very large pension scheme that suffered a catastrophic computer failure and lost member records. The cost of restoring that could be well above the capital adequacy put in place, and nothing in the Bill explains where the cost of restoring those records would be covered. The only place might be the members’ pots themselves, which is not supposed to happen.

I vividly recall assurances given by Ministers on defined benefit schemes during the 1990s, when the minimum funding requirement was supposed to ensure that schemes would always have enough money to pay pensions. No one foresaw the problems evident in the early 2000s, when schemes that had met MFR legislation wound up and ended up without enough money to pay any money to some members on the pensions that they were owed.

Even more concerning than that is that the Bill is being introduced when 80 or so master trusts are already in existence in the market with a huge number of members across the country already saving in a pension. These trusts have not been subject to the capital adequacy test or other tests that the Bill will rightly introduce. What is the protection for members of existing schemes who are saving in good faith? They are not protected at all. That was why I was very pleased that we passed the amendment concerning the scheme funder of last resort. I echo the question of the noble Baroness, Lady Drake: what discussions have taken place with the industry to find a solution to cover the eventuality—we do not expect it and it is, I admit, a small probability—that an existing master trust winds up without enough funding to cover the costs of administration to sort out its records and transfer them over to another scheme? I should be grateful for some information from my noble friend about whether there are ongoing discussions and how the department sees that eventuality being covered: where would the money be found?

On Amendments 5 to 19, I share some of the reservations mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, such as the regulatory disparity between a master trust, which would be regulated by the Pensions Regulator—and therefore under its control, if you like —and a master trust transferred under the amendments to a pension scheme regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. How would the regulatory systems work together when they are under different legislation?

I have other concerns, but I may raise them under the next group.

Pension Schemes Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Altmann and Baroness Drake

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 28th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Drake (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 45 and to the other amendments in this group. My noble friend Lord McKenzie will speak to Amendment 47A.

Clause 31, taken with Schedule 1, provides a power for the regulator to pause certain master trust activities once a triggering event such as a wind-up has occurred. That power can be exercised if there is an immediate threat to the assets of the scheme or it is in the interests of the generality of the scheme members. A pause order prevents new members coming in, payments being made, further contributions being received or benefits being paid. That is a sensible provision. The administrative and accounting records of the master trust or of other companies used by the trust to hold investments or provide services may be in a mess. It may not be clear who is entitled to what. Evidence of fraud may emerge during a triggering event. The early years experience of the Pension Protection Fund when accessing schemes that have the mix of DB and DC benefits revealed just how poor the records could be and the problems that that throws up.

The amendments in this group in my name and that of my noble friend Lord McKenzie are directed at how the pause will work in practice. Clause 31(4) restricts the use of a pause order to circumstances in which there is,

“an immediate risk to the interests of members … or the assets … and … it is necessary”,

to act. Amendment 45 adds the words “or prudent” after the word “necessary” to protect members’ interests, as a condition to be met if a pause order is to be made. The intention behind inserting that phrase is to give the regulator greater discretion and an ability to act more cautiously and earlier than is suggested by the word “necessary”—and, indeed, before a risk has crystallised—to allow the regulator to mitigate emerging risks to members and take action when in their informed view it would be prudent to do so. The power to issue a pause order comes into effect only when there is a triggering event, when a failure of some kind has already occurred, which means that the likelihood of a risk to the assets or members crystallising is greater, so allowing a prudent approach in those circumstances seems sensible.

If a pause order is in place, Clause 31 provides that no subsequent pension contributions due to be paid into the scheme by or on behalf of the member or employer can be paid, and any pension contributions deductions from a member’s earnings will be repaid to them. Under the Bill as drafted, the total period during which a pause order can be in place is six months, but the Government have tabled Amendment 52, which will allow the regulator to extend the pause order on one or more occasions, unconstrained by the six-month limit. So, the pause order could stay in place for quite a long time. During the period when the pause order is in place, the member loses the ability to save for a pension through the workplace scheme, loses the tax relief and loses the employer’s contribution due under auto-enrolment. It is harsh on the individual to lose pension savings and interrupt the harnessing of inertia in auto-enrolment, when through no fault of theirs a master trust fails.

Amendment 46 would address that loss to the member by requiring that pension contributions that would otherwise have been due to a member should be held in an escrow account or otherwise under arrangements to be specified by the regulator. Those contributions could be held somewhere safe until the pause order is lifted and then paid into members’ individual pension pots. It would not be necessary for the money held to be invested so as to gain value that reflects what the member would have received if the original scheme had not been wound up. Holding it in a cash fund could be sufficient.

Does the Minister agree that it is harsh and unfair for workers to lose savings in their pension pots under auto-enrolment as a consequence of a master trust’s failure? Will he consider a provision allowing the pension contributions otherwise due by and held on behalf of the scheme member to continue to be paid into an appropriate holding vehicle during the period of the pause order? Clause 31 allows a pause order to prevent the making of payments and the paying out of benefits while it is in place. Depending on how such an order is applied, and for how long, that could pose real problems for some members of the scheme. Amendment 50 would allow payments to be paid for someone in ill health. For example, an older person with debilitating chronic ill health or a terminal illness could be in real difficulty if they were denied access to pension savings that they needed to live on. How is it intended that the pause order regulations will address the needs of people in ill health?

Master trusts will receive pension contributions into members’ pots, but they will also pay out money to members accessing their savings. Where a scheme member has been relying on such payments to live, and may have standing orders in place for their bills, if payments are suddenly ceased they could be in some difficulty. How will the pause order regulations address the needs of those people, particularly pensioners, who are dependent on payments received from the master trust? As I said in opening, the provision for a pause order seems sensible: it is the manner in which that order is operated that could cause unfairness or difficulties.

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

My Lords, I support these amendments, and I would like to probe the Minister on what the pause order is really meant to achieve. As the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, has just asked, how does he envisage it will work in practice? If a pause order is introduced by the Pensions Regulator, it is likely that an employer will be in breach of its auto-enrolment duties and potentially in breach of contract with its employees. In those circumstances, we could need some of the bulk DC transfer regulations, which we have discussed and I hope we may come to later, to enable a scheme to ensure that such transfers can be made relatively swiftly and without too much expense—perhaps before a triggering event, although the proposal is currently only if there is a triggering event. That would require some of the existing regulations that are made with DB schemes in mind to be undone.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Altmann]

Might I suggest that my noble friend’s amendment is particularly relevant where the master trust has had a triggering event? At the moment, the rules for a bulk transfer of defined contribution benefits do not allow trustees easily to transfer the members’ rights across to another scheme. In many cases it may require member consent or complex calculations that are based on defined benefit schemes and not defined contribution schemes. Therefore, I certainly echo the sentiments expressed by my noble friend about the importance of being able easily to transfer accrued rights across from one scheme to another without member consent. As he rightly said, very often members become a little disengaged from their pension pots and may not themselves want to engage in the idea of transferring across. Somebody else being able to do it on their behalf would make sense.

It may also be prudent to consider the notion of bulk transfers, which I did raise on the first day of Committee, even in the circumstances that there has not been a triggering event. That might more easily facilitate the orderly transfer across of members’ accrued benefits under a scheme in which it is considered likely or inevitable that a triggering event will occur. The Pensions Regulator may then be able to be proactive rather than reactive in being able to protect members’ rights and transfer them across without consent in certain circumstances. I would be grateful to hear my noble friend the Minister’s thoughts on that issue.

[Baroness Drake]

My Lords, as others have referred to, central to the resolution regime for a failing master trust is the transfer of the members and their benefits to another approved master trust. However, for this to be achieved efficiently and promptly, and indeed legally, it would be necessary to undertake a bulk transfer of members and their assets. But as the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, has detailed, the current rules on bulk transfers would not be fit for purpose for a failing master trust, with its range of different employers and the potential to provide a wide range of benefits and investments to members, who could be either accumulating or accessing their savings. The amendment put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Flight, is an attempt to address that problem and provides a welcome opportunity to address the issues, because they are concerns that are clearly shared by various Members of this House.

The provisions in the Bill and the regulations will need to enable those bulk transfers to take place efficiently and legally. The regulations will need to set out a clear set of rules. Amendment 80 gives the Secretary of State considerable overarching and overriding powers to require the trustees of a failing master trust to transfer accrued benefits. They are extensive powers, but I suspect of an order probably needed to make the transfer regime work in the event of a master trust’s failure.

These powers will give the Secretary of State and the regulator the ability to direct where, potentially, many millions of pounds of members’ money is transferred to. Had we had draft regulations before us, we might have had many questions. I refer in particular to the House having discussed at length the problems that can occur if the administrative records of the master trust are incomplete or in disarray. Even something simple like the lack of a current address for a member can cause delay if a notification is required, I promise. I have been there and bought the T-shirt. It is a nightmare.

Is it the Government’s intention that bulk transfers will be able to take place during a triggering event before all past records are clarified? Post-transfer to the receiving scheme, who will bear responsibility for any administrative errors that existed at the point of transfer? Will there be circumstances where the regulations under this Bill will override other pension regulations in order to effect that bulk transfer? I have one small example. Under auto-enrolment, when members are in self-select funds and are transferred without their written consent, they are from then on treated as having been put into a default fund and the charge cap of 0.75% is applied. I do not want to go into too much detail, but that is to illustrate the question of whether there will be circumstances where the regulations under the Bill will override other pension-related regulations. I commend the amendment because it seeks to address an issue that all of us are aware of if the resolution regime will be based on directing the trustees of failing schemes to transfer their members’ benefits to other master trusts.

Occupational Pension Schemes (Scheme Administration) (Amendment) Regulations 2016

Debate between Baroness Altmann and Baroness Drake

Monday 14th March 2016 Grand Committee

[Baroness Altmann]

I am happy to try to cover it if the answers that I have given are not sufficient. One of the crucial tests here is whether a scheme is promoting itself to outside employers rather than being part of a group. If a company is being taken over or if shares are changing hands, but it is all within the same group, same company and same partners, it is likely to be considered a connected scheme rather than a multiemployer scheme and therefore exempt. However, if there are other issues that the noble Lord would like me to elaborate on outside this debate, I am happy to explore those.

[Baroness Drake (Lab)]

I was not going to come in on this regulation but the Minister’s comments have prompted a question in my mind. If a company is in the corporate group and participating in a pension scheme—so it does not come under the definition of a multiemployer scheme—and that company then leaves the corporate group but continues to participate in that pension scheme, would that automatically transfer it to the status of a multiemployer scheme?

[Baroness Altmann]

The noble Baroness raises an interesting point, which I myself have explored. It is the case that if an employer leaves a previous group but the employees are still part of that scheme, it will be considered a connected scheme because the members are still part of the same group. The group stays in the scheme, so in that circumstance it would still be part of the group rather than becoming a multiemployer scheme, as long as it is not then opening itself to promotion to attract other employees and employers. I hope that that answers the noble Baroness’s question.

[Baroness Drake]

I do not want to labour the point but I am still not clear in my mind: if you have a corporate group of companies and one of them literally is divested in some way, and it continues to use that pension scheme but is no longer part of the corporate group, what status does that trigger? I am happy to pursue this question offline.

[Baroness Altmann]

Regarding these regulations, as I have just described, if employers that are outside the group can fit within these corporate scenarios—that will include where an employer was part of the corporate group but has now left the group and continues to participate in the scheme—they are considered a corporate group scheme.

Automatic Enrolment (Earnings Trigger and Qualifying Earnings Band) Order 2016

Debate between Baroness Altmann and Baroness Drake

Monday 14th March 2016 Grand Committee

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Altmann) (Con)]

My Lords, this order, which was laid before the House on 8 February 2016, reflects the conclusions of this year’s annual review—required by the Pensions Act 2008—of the automatic enrolment earnings thresholds. The review considered both the automatic enrolment earnings trigger, which determines the point when someone becomes eligible to be automatically enrolled into a workplace pension, and the qualifying earnings band, which determines the earnings levels in relation to which the enrolled employee and their employer have to pay contributions into a workplace pension.

The order sets a new upper limit for the qualifying earnings band and is effective from 6 April 2016. The earnings trigger and the lower earnings limit are not changed within this order. The lower earnings limit remains as set in the Automatic Enrolment (Earnings Trigger and Qualifying Earnings Band) Order 2015. The earnings trigger also remains that set in the Automatic Enrolment (Earnings Trigger and Qualifying Earnings Band) Order 2014.

Automatic enrolment continues to make workplace pension saving the “new normal”. The proportion of those enrolled who later choose to opt out remains low, at 9%, according to the Employers’ Pension Provision Survey 2015, which is well below the original programme assumption of 28%. Our new awareness campaign, launched in October 2015, Don’t Ignore the Workplace Pension, builds on previous campaigns that sought to normalise pension saving among individuals and is designed to prompt employers—small and large—to find out about their duties and the process of automatic enrolment.

Automatic enrolment continues to bring into its target group those least likely to save for retirement. Low-paid workers and women, who are often likely to be low earners, have traditionally been underrepresented within workplace pension savings. Since 2011 the private sector has seen a 24-percentage-point increase in eligible female participation in workplace pensions, and in 2014 there was no gender gap in participation, with 63% of both eligible men and women participating.

This positive trend is expected to continue as we enter automatic enrolment’s most significant stage: the phased rollout to small and micro employers from now on. Last year saw the successful staging of the first tranche of small and micro employers. Over the next 12 months, more than 700,000 small or micro employers are projected to have started enrolling their employees into a workplace pension. Many tasked with this legal duty are not commercial enterprises but individuals who employ single members of staff, such as nannies, home helps or personal care assistants. At this crucial stage of implementation, it is therefore more important than ever that when deciding the thresholds for joining and contributing to a workplace pension we strike the correct balance between minimising the administrative burden on employers and ensuring that as many people as possible save in a workplace pension.

To describe the impact of the order, I turn first to the qualifying earnings band. This sets the earnings levels within which an automatically enrolled employee and their employer have to pay a proportion of the employee’s income into a workplace pension. Past reviews have generally linked this to the national insurance bands and this has been uncontroversial. As I signalled in my Written Ministerial Statement on 15 December 2015, the lower limit for the qualifying earnings band will remain unchanged and aligned with the national insurance lower earnings limit of £5,824. This order will align the qualifying earnings band upper limit with the new national insurance upper earnings limit of £43,000. By maintaining the alignment with the national insurance thresholds, both at the point where contributions start for low earners and are capped for higher earners, the overall changes to existing payroll systems are kept to a minimum. This decision therefore both ensures simplicity and minimises the administrative burden of compliance for employers in 2016-17.

The order does not change the earnings trigger. This remains at the value set in the 2014-15 order. This trigger is the earnings level at which individuals are eligible to be automatically enrolled into a workplace pension scheme by their employer. We have decided to maintain the existing automatic enrolment earnings trigger for 2016-17, so it will remain at £10,000. Due to anticipated wage growth, and with maintenance of the earnings trigger, we expect that an additional 130,000 individuals will now meet the earnings criteria and be brought into the automatic enrolment population. Of these, we estimate that 71%, or around 91,000, will be women. Individuals earning below the £10,000 earnings trigger but above the lower earnings threshold will still have the option to opt into a workplace pension and benefit from their employer contributions, should they wish.

In conclusion, the decision to maintain the earnings trigger at £10,000 will increase the number of low earners and women who meet the earnings criteria, and who are therefore automatically enrolled into a workplace pension. This decision will increase the total numbers saving into a pension and total savings. It is expected to further increase the number of women eligible to enrol, or be re-enrolled, into a workplace pension.

The decision to maintain the alignment of the lower and upper earnings qualifying bands with national insurance contributions thresholds maintains simplicity, and ensures that there are no new potential administrative burdens on employers at a crucial stage of the programme’s wider rollout. The order therefore ensures that automatic enrolment will continue to provide greater access and opportunity for more individuals to save into a workplace pension with the help of their employer, and those enrolled will have a chance to build up meaningful pension savings. I commend the order to the Committee.

[Baroness Drake (Lab)]

My Lords, these regulations provide an annual event for me. While I consistently recognise the success of the department in rolling out auto-enrolment, and we have all been pleased by the power of inertia to sustain low levels of opt-out, in previous years I have been increasingly frustrated by the number of women being excluded from auto-enrolment because of the rather aggressive way in which the earnings trigger was increased. Last year I came with a little more humility and was pleased to see that the earnings trigger was being maintained at £10,000 rather than tracing the tax threshold, and of course I am pleased that it is being maintained at £10,000 again. Those are the positives, and I am a “half full” person, but even a “half full” person still wants the extra half-glass that remains empty. I continue to remain concerned that only 38% of the eligible auto-enrolment population are women. In my view, that is still too low. A core principle in designing the new private pension system was that it should work for women, and I do not think that that principle is being met with in that percentage level.