Pensions Bill

My noble friend seems to be extending the debate. If I may advise him, I would say that that is not necessarily totally in his interests. He may well have been a trustee of another pension scheme; it is not exactly a unique qualification in this House. I am taking it from the point of view of members of the scheme. The trustees are there to represent the members, so they should have the right to choose a certain proportion of them. I am not making a case against the present trustees; I have been careful not to do so. I strongly advise my noble friend not to provoke me or I may go down a rather different road. My amendment proposes that at least one-third of the trustees should be not only nominated by the members but elected by them. If they were able only to nominate them, that would bring us back to the current position. Election is the proper way of doing it. The current position is that eight of the 10 trustees are serving Members of Parliament, appointed by the Whips; one, as we heard, is a Member of this House, appointed by the Whips here; and one has been nominated by the association representing former Members of Parliament—a step taken only recently, though it is a step. All of them are members of the scheme; there is no independent member of any kind on the trustee board. In other words, there is no truly independent member and no independent chairman. I emphasise that this is not a criticism of the current chairman, who has done a great deal to try to rectify some of the faults in the present system. I pay tribute to Sir John Butterfill for that. However, there is no independence. I simply do not believe that anyone can seriously claim that this is a perfect position for a pension fund to be in, let alone a parliamentary pension fund, given all the requirements and conditions that we place on other pension funds. We debate and enact Bill after Bill to place conditions, restrictions and rules on outside pension schemes, yet we have a parliamentary pension scheme system that is antiquated and unreformed. I cannot imagine why we think that reform is right for outside schemes but not applicable to our inside parliamentary scheme. Why do we think it right to enact Bill after Bill that applies outside but not to us? I should be grateful for the Minister’s guidance, because we are in a pretty technical area and I do not want to table an amendment that does not bring into effect the purpose behind it. I have tried to remove the exemption for the parliamentary pension fund which exists under current law, and impose the requirement that at least one-third of pension trustees should be elected by members of the pension fund. That is my case, which is exploratory at this stage. I am anxious to find out whether the amendment serves the purpose that I have set out. If it does not, we have time to change it before Report stage. The Treasury is at the centre of these arrangements; it rules rather than the trustees. I would like to find out how it sees or defends a position that many in this country regard as out of date. I beg to move.