Pensions Bill

My Lords, I still have some of the hesitations that I had last time, although I have a lot of sympathy for the amendment. It is entirely reasonable that an employer should not be expected, let alone required, to give advice. That is a very tendentious area, and I think we all agree that straightforward information would be acceptable, particularly if the employer was a vehicle for other people’s information which might be provided by the Government, Citizens Advice or the Pensions Advisory Service, in which I declare an interest as a trustee. The good faith issue was not about testing the mind of the employer but about whether he—for these purposes I shall use the word ““he””—had taken reasonable steps to ensure that the information that he was passing on to the employee was correct. Clearly, I would not expect the employer to take any responsibility for information that came from a third-party source—the DWP or Citizens Advice, for example—but if the employer decided to give information, I think that he would have a duty of care to act reasonably by ensuring that the information was correct and not misleading. I was seeking to establish that an employer could not act recklessly. It could be the employer in a newsagent or a chip shop who has never been in this situation and decides casually to give information that is incorrect or misleading and, as a result, someone decides to opt out or possibly opt in when they should not do so. Therefore, I suppose that I was seeking to introduce a test relating to recklessness or reasonableness or whether someone has behaved appropriately. I do not have precise words for it. I suspect that the noble Baroness and I do not disagree on this but I wonder whether, when she comes to reply, she can help me further. I do not know what her intentions are but if she were to revisit this issue at Third Reading, I would hope very much that she could at least clear up that matter.