Pensions Bill

My Lords, I am delighted to give the official support of these Benches to the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, and I am equally delighted that we are ending this stage of the Bill in this House with both of the main official Opposition parties singing again from the same hymn sheet. In his introduction, the noble Lord discussed the rather incorrect report in the Guardian on Monday of the great triumph last week. The report was even more interesting than that because it named every speaker apart from the two of us from these Benches, my noble friend Lady Thomas and I. If you read it, you would not be aware that only the Liberal Democrats were officially supporting that Motion. However, the Guardian has its own ways. In the Daily Telegraph on Saturday, Ian Cowie and Harriet Meyer gave an excellent, full and proper account, and so did the Sunday Telegraph. It is interesting how the wheel turns. I was particularly pleased to hear the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, saying on the Statement how much he welcomed post-legislative scrutiny. We hope that all noble Lords will take this opportunity to strike a blow for that today. The noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, pointed out the Law Commission report. I have done a little digging on that. Before this debate, I asked the Library to check what the latest state of play on that was. I remind noble Lords that on 10 January the previous Leader of the House said that the Government were grateful to the Law Commission for its work on post-legislative scrutiny—let me say that it was excellent work—and that they were consulting within government before responding formally to its proposals. Indeed, she said that she was attracted to the notion. This afternoon, the Library checked with the Law Commission to see where this had got to. A fair summary of the Law Commission’s reply was, ““We don’t know when the Government will respond, and we don’t even know which Minister is in charge of seeing that we get a response””. That is six months on from the reply I quoted from the Leader of the House. On the assumption that we hear nothing more this Session, it will be at least a year from the publication of the Law Commission’s report before, at the very earliest, the Government give their reply. You do not often hear long grass growing quite so loud, do you? So, whatever the result of this amendment to the Bill, will the Minister undertake to find out from the new Leader of the House who is in charge of responding to the Law Commission’s report, and when that response will appear? The Hansard Society a couple of years ago also made a similar and strong point that Parliament should review the laws it passes. It referred to the fact that when a law is enacted and implemented, its provisions bind society, unless it is subsequently repealed or amended, and that it is often only after its implementation that the effects and implications of an Act can be truly assessed. But it is at that point that Parliament usually shifts its focus to other measures. So, rather than leaving post-legislative review to chance, there should be an agreed process to assess how legislation is working in practice. It says that, "““post-legislative scrutiny is informal and haphazard and usually takes place when a law has caused obvious controversy””." Funnily enough, it then mentions the Child Support Agency, which is exactly the point that the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, rightly brought up, We remember well the previous Pensions Bill. This would be about the time that, had we had this provision in that Bill, we would be undertaking post-legislative scrutiny. I refer in particular to the position of the Pensions Regulator which is now for the first time likely to be tested in court. The regulator has just served his first contribution notice in the case of Sea Containers. The Pension Protection Fund is now fully up and running. Looking back three or four years is the ideal time to do post-legislative scrutiny on that Bill. It is high time that we stopped talking and voted to start scrutinising. Pensions are the ideal place to start.