Pensions Bill

Lord Freud Excerpts

Monday 20th January 2014 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Freud]

62F: Clause 38, page 19, line 38, leave out subsection (4) and insert—
“(4) In subsection (5), in the substituted subsection (2)—
(a) in paragraph (a), for “or a hybrid scheme, or” substitute—“(aa) becomes a defined benefits member, with effect from the closure date, of an automatic enrolment scheme which is a hybrid scheme,”;(b) after paragraph (b) insert—“(c) becomes a money purchase member, with effect from the automatic enrolment date, of an automatic enrolment scheme which is a hybrid scheme.””

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Freud) (Con)]

My Lords, I think confusion may have arisen between the discussions that the previous Labour Government had on this and the discussions that we had in Committee on the previous Pensions Bill, which introduced NEST, or at least some revisions to it. I shall check the Hansard record but I distinctly remember discussing this point with the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, and making an astonishingly similar argument about the importance of making sure that NEST got its primary role right before we moved on to other aspects and transfers. I shall look forward to writing him a letter—I hope—pointing him to the exchange that we had three years ago.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

I look forward to the letter and its contents in due course. We were relaying the origins of NEST in the first place. These issues—the restrictions—were not intended by the then Government that introduced it to avoid NEST being distracted.