I am grateful to my hon. Friend who, as chair of the all-party group on pensions, has great knowledge and expertise on these issues. We need to take forward the matter in partnership with the FCA. As he knows, the Pensions Regulator regulates defined benefit and occupational defined contribution schemes, while the FCA works on group personal pensions, for example, but we want to make sure that, as far as possible, parallel regulations apply to both. We will, indeed, consult on exactly what should be included. We
certainly want to get a move on with it all, so we will move as fast as we can, but we want to do so in partnership with other regulatory bodies. I hope that that offers him the assurance he seeks.
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We are working out how best to publish the information. Some have suggested that we should just bung it on a website. We obviously want meaningful information, not just to have tens of thousands of pension schemes recording vast amounts of data. We think that it is most important to make the information available first to the fiduciaries in any scheme—the people, whether the trustees or the independent governance committees, who act on behalf of scheme members—and that members should have the information in meaningful form, not just pages of gibberish. We have all seen how information that is required by law to be sent to scheme members can turn out to be more or less useless, because nobody ever reads it. We therefore have to think about the right formats in which to supply information to fiduciaries and to scheme members, and the right way to make the information public, and we are thinking that through at the moment. Disclosure on its own is not enough; powers in the Bill will allow the Government to regulate to control charges and to require minimum standards of governance.
A further ambiguity or slight inconsistency in amendment (a) is that it specifically requires the Government to restrict “transaction costs”. The hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East may want to intervene, because the Opposition have previously said that transaction costs should not be part of a cap, certainly at this stage. We therefore assume that it is a drafting error but if their position is now that transaction costs should immediately be part of a cap, perhaps he can explain why he has changed his mind.
Lords amendments 7, 8, 30 and 31 remove references to work-based schemes, which will allow us to extend the powers to closed schemes. That is important, because a legacy scheme review of old, closed and other schemes is currently taking place, and we will need a legislative route if it is necessary, following the voluntary approach of the Association of British Insurers, to review high-cost and legacy schemes. Finally, amendment 14 means that regulations under the powers will be brought forward as soon as practicable, which follows a recommendation from the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, and ensures that the regulations will be affirmative on the first use. Our full response to our consultation on such matters will be published soon.
This is another group on which we urge the House to agree with their lordships in all their amendments. The Lords amendments will make automatic enrolment work better, particularly for defined benefit schemes; ensure that small employers are not excluded; allow HMRC to recover the costs of pot follows member, if we go down that route in relation to involving HMRC; make the PPF compensation cap work; ensure that protections for public service pensioners are properly implemented; and implement the changes made in another place to require the disclosure of information, particularly on transaction costs. All the Lords amendments make the Bill better. I commend Lords amendment 4 to the House.