Pensions Bill

moved Amendment No. 106: 106: Schedule 6, page 65, line 34, after ““must”” insert ““show separately the expenditure by the Authority on its functions of preparing for implementation and of advising on modification as set out in section 20 and otherwise”” The noble Baroness said: I shall also speakto Amendments Nos. 107 and 141. AmendmentsNos. 106 and 107 relate to the delivery authority’s annual report. Amendment No. 106 would require the report to show separately the cost of preparing and implementing the new system, while AmendmentNo. 107 would require the accounts to show the expenditure by the authority that should be recovered as part of the personal accounts system. The amendments speak to the concerns of pension providers about the recovery of cost and the avoidance of subsidies, which we will debate in more detail when we discuss a later amendment. The more important amendment in this group, Amendment No. 141, inserts a new clause after Clause 22 requiring a new report to Parliament on the estimated costs of the personal accounts scheme on a six-monthly basis. I hope that the Minister will find nothing to criticise in its drafting since it is based on Section 36 of the Identity Cards Act 2006. There is a concern about all large projects in the public sector. There is a poor record of delivering new IT systems. The Child Support Agency, the Rural Payments Agency and tax credit systems are recent examples of large systems which have failed to deliver in a significant way, whether by way of cost overruns, failures to deliver the required functionality or a combination of both. The massive NHS IT project will certainly cost more than originally estimated and the jury is still out on functionality. The ID cards scheme raised exactly the same concerns, which is why the Government, in their wisdom, accepted an amendment in another place similar to this one. We might just say that we will wait for the failure to occur and let the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee in another place do their work of picking over the disaster scene. But that would not be very responsible, given the very real need to get the personal accounts scheme up and running by 2012, which could lead to higher costs, and the question could arise as to how those costs should be borne. If they are to be borne by the public purse, that could act as a subsidy to personal account savers and possibly act as a detriment to providers of other savings products, which is why the Association of British Insurers has suggested this amendment. However, if costs, however great, are to be borne by personal account holders, that too will be of interest in the context of whether the system will deliver the promised economic benefits to savers. At the moment, costs are a big unknown. The only thing we know is that £21 million will be spent on the delivery authority. Cost recovery is still somewhat vague. Because of that, it is important that the overall cost of the scheme as it develops is brought to the attention of Parliament on a regular basis, which would allow proper accountability to and debates within Parliament if things appear not to be going right. Importantly, it would provide important and relevant information to those in the private sector who are affected by the way in which the personal accounts system is developed. I believe that these amendments are modest and I beg to move.