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Pensions Bill

What I recognise, and what the Pensions Policy Institute has already costed, is that the sort of proposal that we make would lead to a massive reduction in means-testing from the levels that the Minister is considering. I hope he will confirm that the band of expectation for means-testing for his policy is between 30 and 45 per cent. I do not necessarily go as far as the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge in casting too many aspersions on the Government’s statistics on the matter. I have no doubt that there are some very skilled and able people in the Department who have come up with the estimates. But the hon. Gentleman will understand why there is a natural instinct to believe that the Government will have used assumptions that massage the extent of means-testing down as far as possible. The Secretary of State says that these are good people and that the statistics are reliable, but during the Bill’s passage we will want a much better assessment of the extent of the problem. The crucial issue is that of returns from the personal account. When I first saw the Secretary of State as he was paving the way for the Bill, he said that he wanted to ensure that more or less everybody who had an account would be better off as a consequence. Over the past couple of months, the Government have had to water down that commitment by saying that some people may actually lose out. Today, the Secretary of State said that the vast majority of people could expect to gain £2 for every £1 that they put into the account, despite the effects of means-testing. I am baffled by that.