Pensions Bill

I thank the Minister for that reply and other noble Lords who participated in the debate. I think that I thank the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, who said he thought he knew what the Minister was going to say, and thought that he agreed with it. So perhaps I do not welcome what he contributed to the debate. I fully accept what the noble Lord, Lord Turner, said—that it is difficult to see this as a responsibility of the delivery authority—but I think that the point was effectively met by my noble friend Lord Blackwell, who said that unless the delivery authority has these issues in mind, we will suddenly get a personal accounts system that will in effect not have paid enough attention to these issues. That may be more easily seen in some of my later amendments rather than this one, where the noble Lord, Lord Turner, is suggesting that it is really only the Government who can do anything about the issues. The Minister said that the Government see personal accounts as complementary, not competing. I have to say to him that that is fundamentally naïve. This system will be in competition with the other forms of pension provision, like it or not. It may not be cut-throat, red-in-tooth-and-claw competition from day one, but over time it will become an alternative that makes itself more attractive to the various types of employers which I ran throughwhen I introduced my remarks. Using the term ““complementary”” rather than ““competitive”” does not make it any less likely that levelling down will happen.