Pension Schemes Bill Debate
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Lord Palmer of Childs Hill
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Pension Schemes Bill
Lord Palmer of Childs Hill Excerpts(1 day, 8 hours ago)
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Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)
My Lords, if only we had dealt with all the amendments during the passage of the Bill as quickly as we have today, we would not have been here quite so late on many occasions.
I thank my noble friends Lady Bowles—whose expertise has been amazing—Lord Sharkey and Lord Thurso, and our hard-working political adviser, Ulysse Abbate. I also thank profusely those on the Conservative Front Bench, with whom we have worked very well on things on which we agreed. When we disagreed, we did not come to a bunfight. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, a former Pensions Minister, whose expertise has been valuable in dealing with the Bill. I also thank the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Katz, and their team, for their superb work on a very technical Bill with high-stakes issues. I realise that there are pressures from the other end as well as here, but we think we have worked well and come out with something pretty reasonable.
On these Benches we recognise and welcome some of the measures in the Bill, such as the value-for-money framework and the superfunds legislation. We have also noted large gaps in the regulation, including on pension scandals such as the AEAT pension scandal and injustices that no one seems to want to face up to, such as the pre-1997 indexation issues. The Liberal Democrats will continue to challenge the Government on going further.
We have worked hard to expose the flaws in the Government’s plans on mandation. This is probably one of the most important issues. Not only is a reserve power dangerous, in that it gives this and future Governments huge powers, but the clause itself has flaws, which my noble friend Lady Bowles and others across the Chamber have pointed out extensively in our debates.
We have had a very good run with this Bill. I again thank the Minister for engaging with us and, I hope, coming up with something that maybe, as time goes on, we can tweak in some ways, but not necessarily in primary legislation.