Pensions Bill

The hon. Gentleman has contradicted the answer that he just gave. He said that the amendments were about only one class of assets, but now says that they can be about any class of assets. Today, he has shown why what we should be doing is waiting for pensions experts to complete their review, rather than accepting his amendments. Our key concern should be getting as much money as possible to people. In Prime Minister’s questions, the Leader of the Opposition said that we should be doing more for people who are retired today, and we agree entirely. That is why the Government amendment will increase the amount that people get in initial payments from 60 per cent. to 80 per cent. That means more money for more people immediately. That brings me to new clause 47, whose purposes appear to be twofold: first, to transfer the delivery of the financial assistance scheme to pension schemes; and, secondly, to provide that funds for those payments should be provided by FAS or by the lifeboat, whether by loan or by retrospective repayment. The problem with the new clause is that scheme administrators, who are expert in what they do, would have to learn a new set of skills that FAS is currently delivering. We would be ignoring the expertise that exists in FAS—a single centralised unit, which has assessed hundreds of schemes—and instead asking hundreds of scheme administrators to learn those skills. Those scheme administrators would then come to us saying that they should be paid for having done so. Instead of increasing the cost to pension schemes, thus depleting the amount available to members, and slowing the process of making payments to people, we should be working with scheme administrators so that they provide the information that we need to make initial payments to people which, as I have just announced, will increase from 60 per cent. to 80 per cent. Government new clause 38 is the only amendment that will enable us to give more people more money immediately, and I urge hon. Members to support it.