Pension Schemes Bill

Baroness Drake Excerpts

Tuesday 27th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bradley]

My Lords, this amendment is connected to Amendment 22. We had an extremely interesting debate in Committee on the merits of what is known as the second line of defence, and I am pleased that we are able to return to it today as a result of our amendment.

I preface my brief remarks on this matter with our general approach to the Bill throughout its passage in the House. While we broadly support the new freedoms and flexibilities in the Bill and its related Bill on taxation, we have sought throughout to ensure that the interests of pensioners—customers—are protected in what has often been a very dysfunctional annuities market. Our overriding aim has been to ensure that those protections for the public are in place before the Bill is enacted at the beginning of April.

To return to this specific amendment, we argued in Committee that a second line of defence was vital. We discussed evidence from two reports from the Financial Conduct Authority, quoted in Committee, that the market is often not functioning as it should and is letting consumers down. We believed that action was needed immediately to protect savers when making possibly the most complex financial decision that they will ever have to make.

In Committee, the Minister did not seem to accept that action for a second line of defence should be in place by April this year, when the new freedoms and flexibilities are implemented. Instead, he suggested that, because the FCA is a relatively new body with new powers, and has committed to reviewing all its rules in the first half of this year, we should in effect await the outcome of its deliberations before any further action was taken. In response to the Minister, I said that while I would reflect on what he had said, I believed that the public sought reassurance and the confidence that a second line of defence would give them. That is why we have continued to champion a second line of defence throughout the passage of the Bill in both Houses, as have many pension groups and organisations outside this House.

I and my noble friends therefore welcome the Government’s apparent change of heart today, and the fact that they have recognised the strength of the arguments to protect pensioners that we have been making. It is with pleasure we received, and read, the very welcome letter from the Financial Conduct Authority, dated 26 January, saying that it would ensure the,

“appropriate protection of consumers, accessing their pension saving”.

This is extremely welcome, and starts to put together a proper second line of defence.

At this stage of the debate, though, I have three questions for the Minister. First, as the letter says:

“Subject to agreement of the Board, we are minded that it is appropriate to bring these rules into force on a temporary basis from 6 April, and prior to consultation, to provide important additional protection for consumers”.

Will the Minister confirm that the Board will agree to putting this second line of defence in place and that, at a future stage, the Board may decide that it is not necessary?

Secondly, the letter goes on to say:

“As part of that consultation we will also consult on whether to retain or modify the temporary rules that we are proposing to introduce in April”.

Will the Minister assure the House that, after the temporary period that the Financial Conduct Authority is proposing, there are no circumstances in which it would then remove the second line of defence?

Thirdly, in relation to trust-based schemes, it is my understanding that the Pensions Regulator is responsible for these schemes, not the Financial Conduct Authority. Will the Minister assure the House that similar protections for trust-based defined contribution schemes will be made by the Pensions Regulator, in parallel with the FCA?

The merits for a second line of defence seem now to be accepted. I look forward to the Minister’s responses.

[Baroness Drake (Lab)]

My Lords, I had a lengthy and impassioned speech prepared on the need for a second line of defence to address the risks that pension savers might make detrimental and irreversible choices when they access their savings. However, this has been tempered by the letter from the FCA, so my contribution is shorter and less passionate as a consequence.

This amendment sets out a duty on the Financial Conduct Authority to protect savers accessing their pension savings when they are engaging with providers during the decision-making and purchasing process. This is distinct from the duty on the FCA to protect savers receiving guidance from designated guidance providers.

The guidance guarantee, now referred to as Pension Wise, is a key measure for helping people navigate the complex retirement options arena from April 2015. There are people working hard to make its delivery a success, as it will provide a very important service to savers. The FCA will expect providers to check whether a customer has used the guidance service and, if not, to encourage them to do so. In popular parlance, this is the first line of defence.

Beyond the guidance stage, the saver has to move to the process of making a decision, and of selecting or purchasing a retirement income route. It is what happens at this stage—the exchange between the consumer and the provider—that is causing so much anxiety and to which the amendment is directed. It puts a duty on the FCA to secure an appropriate degree of protection for the consumer at that stage. This is what is popularly referred to as the second line of defence.

As my noble friend has said, we have now received the letter from Mr Woolard, Director, Strategy and Competition at the FCA, advising that FCA board approval is being sought for this second line of defence. It is minded to bring these rules into force on 6 April 2015, pending a review of all the current regulatory requirements around the customer’s interaction with the providers. The CEO and chair of the FCA have made some thoughtful and welcome speeches that have set the framework for debate in addressing the challenge of poorly functioning financial services markets.

The recent FCA reports on retirement income markets have been hard hitting and on the nail. It is worth reminding ourselves what they observed: annuity sales practices were contributing to consumers missing out on a potentially higher income; consumers’ tendency to buy from their existing provider lowered the potential for higher income; consumers will be poorly placed to drive effective competition; the retirement income market is not working well; and the introduction of greater choice and potentially more complex products will reduce consumer confidence and weaken the competitive pressures on providers to offer good value. The anxiety was that that analysis and the heightened risk of consumer detriment with the advent of the new freedoms would not translate into sufficient regulatory protection. Against that background, the FCA letter is most appreciated, although I await with interest the answers to my noble friend Lord Bradley’s three questions.

The second line of defence is not a total solution to the risk that consumers will make decisions that are not in their interest, but it will make a very important contribution to what we know is a poorly performing market. I therefore welcome the FCA letter and thank the Minister for facilitating its publication.

[Lord Hutton of Furness (Lab)]

My Lords, it has been clear to everyone following this debate about the latest tranche of pension reforms brought forward by the coalition Government that if we were to mitigate some of the obvious risks that are created by this new world of choice and flexibility at the point of retirement for people saving in DC schemes, it would be necessary to put into place something that we have now called the second line of defence.

The need for the so-called second line of defence was crystal clear quite early on. It is important that we do not treat people at the point of their retirement like children; they have saved all their lives for that point. However, the lack of a requirement to take guidance, because it is a choice or option, certainly creates a substantial risk that the benefits of the Government’s reforms—the greater freedoms—which I think most of us would welcome, could create some very unfortunate outcomes. We know from the failure of the open market option, and from previous attempts to get this right, that the real risk we need to mitigate here is that people will make the wrong decision, and in the later years of their retirement they will find that they just do not have enough money to pay their bills, and will present themselves and seek benefits. That would be a terrible outcome.

Therefore, the decision to put in place the second line of defence, which we heard recently from the FCA, is to be enormously welcomed. We do not know what this second line of defence will actually be; we do not know what will prompt them—what questions consumers will be asked by their pension provider before they take any final decisions. But at least we now have something in place that holds out the prospect that these reforms will work. There was a very real danger that if we did not put this second line of defence in place, the reforms would fail, and that the failure would live with us and haunt us for decades—people who had saved and worked hard all their lives would find themselves running out of money during their retirement. That would represent policy failure on a grand scale.

Today, therefore, we have an opportunity to make these reforms work. I suspect that means that probably we will not need a vote on my noble friend’s amendment, which, like my noble friend Lady Drake, I was very keen to support today. I hope that we would have had a majority in this House for the amendment. This prudent step is not about wrapping up these new freedoms with overly regulatory responses, and so on, but about taking the right course of action to mitigate the obvious risk of policy failure while preserving at the same time the essence of the new freedoms, which is to choose and to make personal financial decisions at the point of retirement.

So I, too, would welcome some further clarification from the Minister today about exactly how this so-called second line of defence will work. We do not know very much about it, but it has to be in place pretty quickly, and there will be lots of concerns out there about exactly what it will mean and who will effectively have the responsibility to enforce it and oversee it.