Pensions Bill

My Lords, I appreciate that there is in history perhaps less experience of government on the noble Lord’s Benches, but it sometimes helps to provide a Minister with a way out having rejected one thing. Given what is at stake here, which is many people’s livelihoods and pensions, would it not be sensible for the noble Lord to treat the amendment as giving the Government a way out, which can be reviewed subsequently, and deal with the matter immediately at hand, rather than being gratuitous in his comments about my right honourable friend’s fag packet? This is an attempt to provide the Government with a way out to help people who are in real need. Does he not see that?