Pensions Bill

Amendments Nos. 87 and 104, which are in this group, are tabled in my name. The amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, requires one of the members of the authority to be a person representing the interests of members, but we cannot support it or Amendment No. 85, which was tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Gibson, for three reasons. First, we do not believe that anybody who sits on an authority should represent a particular interest. That does not lead to good governance, as all members should be focused impartially on the functions of the authority. Secondly, the amendment focuses on one group called ““consumers””. I find that a very vague term, although the Consumers’ Association doubtless finds it easy to deal with. I think that what is meant is more specific: those who are, or may well be, members of the scheme. Thirdly, the amendment focuses on only one possible interest group, and we know that there are other groups, not least those who provide pensions, that believe that their voices should be represented in the authority. That is why my Amendment No. 87 requires the Secretary of State merely to have regard to the desirability of a balance of interests on the board, with nobody being there as a representative. The amendment refers to those with knowledge and experience of members’ needs, employers’ involvement, pension providers and regulatory issues around pensions, and I have no doubt that others could be added to that list. My amendment does not require the Secretary of State to make specific appointments from any of those groups. In fact, that would be impractical, as the membership of the very small board that we discussed on previous amendments would not, except occasionally, go above nine members. My amendment does not preclude the Secretary of State taking into account other factors that are normally brought into play when designing a board, the most common nowadays being the diversity agenda. Amendment No. 104 adds a specific committeeto represent the interests of scheme membersand prospective scheme members. It is similar to Amendment No. 104A, which was tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Gibson, but her amendment is more elaborate and potentially more constraining. My amendments meet the concerns of the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, but in another way. As she said, it is clearly important that the design of the personal accounts system should have the interests of those who should benefit from it at its heart—I think the noble Baroness used that term—but not necessarily on the authority itself. The noble Baroness, Lady Turner, referred to the announcement last month that there would be a members’ panel for the personal accounts scheme. An equivalent panel exists for the Financial Services Authority, and it is a perfectly normal mechanism to set up. We shall certainly be looking carefully at the next Bill to see that one is set up when the scheme is set up, but the issue now is the Personal Accounts Delivery Authority, and it is important that there should be a panel that represent the views of those who will become members of the scheme. We believe that that should be in the Bill. There may not be much in practice between me and the noble Baronesses opposite, but we come about these things in a slightly different way.