Pensions Bill

moved, as an amendment to Amendment No. 78Y, Amendment No. 78AN: 78AN: Before Schedule 9, leave out lines 506 to 512 The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I shall be brief. Amendment No. 78AN would delete parts of paragraph 14 of proposed new Schedule 9. This is a probing amendment, designed to focus on the concerns of private equity investors. The amendment concerns the financial support direction provisions of the 2004 Act. The Bill changes that to allow the question of inadequate resourcing to be determined in the context of the aggregate value of connected or associated persons. The Minister will be aware that the definition of ““associated and connected persons”” is a broad one in the 2004 Act. I am sure the Minister is also aware of ongoing concerns in the private equity world and elsewhere that companies within a portfolio of investments could each be exposed to the regulator’s powers, even though individually they do not operate on a connected basis and the ownership arrangements do not even involve common control. Private equity arrangements often involve such things as limited liability partnerships, which potentially bring together even more unrelated persons. I understand the present practice is not to draw in de facto unrelated parties, despite the de jure effect of ownership structures. I have tabled the amendment to give the Minister the opportunity to say how he expects the private equity and loose arrangements within portfolios to be dealt with under the provisions? I beg to move.