UK Parliament / Open data

Pension Schemes Bill [HL]

Proceeding contribution from Baroness Sherlock (Labour) in the House of Lords on Wednesday, 26 February 2020. It occurred during Debate on bills and Committee proceeding on Pension Schemes Bill [HL].

My Lords, I want to pursue a couple of points. I am a simple soul compared to many around the table who can come back to the noble Baroness on the detail. However, I think that she has just said in summary that the regulator knows that some companies have a problem in this area but feels that, by and large, the current regime gives it the tools to deal with it; where there is a gap, it will deal with it by secondary legislation, which will be clearer about the requirements for an appropriate recovery plan; and that anything above that, such as notification, will be disproportionate and unnecessary. I invite her to correct me if I am wrong.

I will bring her back to what is missing from that statement. First, it is pre-emptive and proactive in nature. Neither I nor the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, said that separate rules should be set up for overseas shareholders or companies with them. We were making the point that one of the reasons that it would be useful to have a notification requirement, as set out by the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, would be so that money would not be taken out and the regulator would not then have to go after it—rather, it would get advance notice that this was going to happen and could see whether it was appropriate. The point about overseas companies was simply that, if money goes overseas, it is much harder and more expensive to get it back if the regulator goes after it.

I come back to my question: why do the Government not believe that it would be useful to have some requirement that companies should notify the regulator if they declare a dividend where there was a DRC in place? Why is that a problem?

About this proceeding contribution

Reference

802 c141GC 

Session

2019-21

Chamber / Committee

House of Lords Grand Committee
Back to top