---

Occupational Pensions

Will the shadow Chancellor not also acknowledge that we are the first Government to create an auto-enrolment pension scheme that will mean that all—[Interruption.] I will give way to all the hon. Members who want to intervene once I have set out my argument and shown that the shadow Chancellor has made a series of mistakes. We are the first Government to create an auto-enrolment pension scheme that will mean that all taxpayers have a pension from work. That was never done by the Conservatives; it has been implemented by Labour. We are the first Government to make it a priority to tackle pensioner poverty. That is why we have introduced the pension credit, the winter allowance, and the free TV licence for the over-75s—opposed by the Conservative party in the 2001 election. We will be the first Government in 30 years to restore the link between pensions and earnings when we introduce our long-term changes as a result of the Pensions Bill. Despite what the shadow Chancellor has been saying throughout the debate, what actually happened to the pension assets from 1996 to the present day is that the assets of pension funds in 1996 were—