Pensions Bill

It makes almost no difference to the point that I was going to make. Having become a grandfather for the first time three months ago, I hope that the noble Baroness recognises the contribution that older grandparents can make. I strongly support this amendment and congratulate my noble friend on proposing it. It is one of the more important amendments that we have so far debated and potentially one of the most important on the Bill. However, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, that it would be much better to have an independent commission do this type of review. My noble friend Lord Skelmersdale and I come to pension credit from rather different viewpoints. I think it fair to say that he was rather sceptical about it. I have always supported pension credit, and indeed Ministers have sought to embarrass me by almost always claiming my support for this proposition. The basis for my support was that it seemed to me entirely right that we should help those who had been unable to build up a pension of their own, through no fault of their own, to have some extra income in retirement. I never envisaged that it would become a permanent part of the pension landscape. The aim should be to give the opportunity to as many people as possible to build up an adequate pension, therefore doing away with the need for pension credit in the first place. That is what all our efforts should be about in this and other legislation. There is a more general point to be made about this and, as someone who was in the Department for Health and Social Security for six years, perhaps I may advise the Minister. The most important thing about some pensions legislation has not been the pre-legislative scrutiny; it has been the lack of post-legislative scrutiny—in other words, checking what has happened against what was intended to happen. The faults, difficulties and errors that occur can certainly come about because of a change of Government, as different Ministers from different parties come in, but one should not ignore the fact that they can come about also when a long-serving Government appoint a new Minister. Regardlessof whether we are talking about a Conservative Government or a Labour Government, a new Minister is unlikely to think that the way of making his mark in his new department is to carry out effectively and brilliantly all the plans that were laid down by his predecessor. Ministerial politics do not work that way. I could give chapter and verse of my own experience in this and I am sure that the Minister and the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Drefelin, could give chapter and verse on the other side. It is vital that we have a means of checking how any of the measures which are passed are carried out in practice. This is entirely a non-party political point. Without such action, we run the risk of repeating some of the errors made in the past. The department will always take its priorities from the Minister who is there at the time. That is no criticism of it, but it could lead us into error. Whether the proposition is accomplished by this amendment or by the later amendments on independent commissions, the Government should, for their own interest, look very seriously at it.