---

Pensions Bill

I just want to make a few points. I agree with what the hon. Members for Eastbourne (Mr. Waterson) and for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Danny Alexander) said about the lifeboat fund. It is a shame that it is not in the amendments; none the less, I do support them. To my mind, the original House of Lords amendment was perfectly adequate, and I do not understand why there has been such a hoo-hah about changing it. I am concerned about subsection (2) of the proposed new clause in amendment No. 22B, which states:"““The regulations must make provision…for authorising the scheme manager to approve the purchase of any such annuities if the scheme manager thinks it appropriate to do so.””" We are talking about a nine-month period; however, speed is of the essence in dealing with these issues. One scheme in my constituency, operated by a solvent employer, illustrates the slow crawl through this legislation that has taken place to get some justice. As the Bill progressed, the Minister rightly agreed that that employer should be covered by the financial assistance scheme, which it previously had not been. The trustees were asking that annuities be bought for those in the scheme who were retiring. Had that change not been made when it was, that scheme would have been annuitised and the assets lost. There is therefore an urgent need to get this situation sorted out. The original amendment would have imposed a straightforward ban for nine months on annuitising such schemes. I can understand why some slight wriggle room has been provided in certain circumstances, but I am concerned that in cases where trustees want to annuitise a scheme, they will have to make an application to the Secretary of State, who will presumably have to investigate the particular circumstances of that scheme before deciding whether to allow annuitisation. That is an extra burden of bureaucracy that the original amendment did not impose; it simply provided for a nine-month ban until the situation has been sorted out. Presumably, all the scheme assets would then have gone into the general FAS pot, which is a better approach. Does the Minister feel that amendment No. 22B imposes an extra bureaucratic layer that could lead to delay, and could require the Secretary of State to investigate many schemes that it would otherwise not have been necessary to investigate?