Pension Schemes Bill [ Lords ] (Second sitting)

Debate between Guy Opperman and Shaun Bailey

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 3rd November 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Guy Opperman]

I explained this at great length earlier, but I will attempt to repeat what I said. I will jump through the verification hoops. The reality is that an individual gets verification and the information passes from the pension finder service to the connected pension schemes asking them to match the individual’s information. The pension scheme finds a match and confirms it to the pension finder service, which responds to the individual via their chosen dashboard saying that it holds the data. When the individual next logs on to their dashboard, the information from the pension scheme will be viewable by the individual. I drew the analogy of the cashpoint, which, I suggest, is the appropriate analogy, whereby if I bank with Barclays and I withdraw from an HSBC account, Barclays does not know what is in my account. That is the process by which we are trying to proceed.

[Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)]

On a slightly parallel point, with the advent of open banking, we had similar discussions on sharing data and the fears around how it might be used commercially. What we have seen is that, with a robust regime and buy-in from many of the stakeholders, it seems to have worked. Many of the fears that were advanced then and that have been articulated today have not really come to fruition. Does my hon. Friend agree that while we can talk about the legislation, it is the buy-in from stakeholders that will ensure that this succeeds?

[Guy Opperman]

There is no question: we are deliberately learning the lessons from open banking and the process whereby we took all our various bank accounts and made them accessible under a strict regulatory regime so that our rights were not infringed. There is now a massively enhanced consumer programme that empowers the consumer, drives down costs and does all the other things that we know open banking does. With great respect, I suggest that that is a very good example.

The big difference is that in open banking we are dealing with a relatively small number of banks in this country, unlike in, say, America, whereas with pensions we are dealing with 40,000 different schemes. But the principles are exactly the same. We have learned from the regulatory process and I have met the chief executive of Open Banking. My officials and the dashboard delivery team are engaging with them. No disrespect, but the problems that the Committee has rightly identified today are exactly the same sort of problems that were identified with open banking. These are the same consumer protection organisations, and I shall come to the approach of Which?, which is probably the No. 1 consumer protection organisation in the country. It is firmly on the side of the Government and disagrees with the amendment. My hon. Friend drew me to that.