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Pensions Bill

The activities in the other place to add the concept of post-legislative scrutiny to the Bill played a useful role. The work done by Lord Fowler, supported by Liberal Democrat, Conservative and Cross-Bencher colleagues, to insist on that concept has in the end managed to wheedle from the Government a useful amendment in response. That goes some way towards meeting the objectives set out in the Lords and on that basis I welcome the Government’s amendment. The Bill will have a very long-term impact indeed. The main impact of the legislation will be felt not in one, two, three or four years’ time, but for generations to come. It is appropriate therefore that there be scrutiny of the Bill’s impact once it receives Royal Assent and becomes law. That is true for a number of reasons, the first of which is the point that Lord Fowler made in his speech in the other place about perceiving and acting on errors or mistakes that may have been made. Government amendment (a) will allow the possibility of proper scrutiny in the future of some of the flaws in the Bill that my hon. Friends and I have highlighted during its passage. The Government deny that there are flaws, but the truth will become certain only with the passage of time. Government amendment (a) will allow time to elapse before those issues can be properly examined. I hope in particular that, in implementing Government amendment (a) in relation to reviewing and preparing a report on the operation of the Act, the Secretary of State, whoever he is by 2014, will have regard to questions about the extent to which means-testing is still a pervasive part of the system by that date. No doubt, we will debate this when the next pensions Bill comes down the track—one is expected in the next Session—but I remain of the view that the extent to which means-testing is still a pervasive part of the system, or mass means-testing, should be considered. I believe very much that that could well undermine personal accounts, the establishment of the delivery authority for which is part of the Bill. The Liberal Democrats have concerns about what the way in which the Bill operates will mean for the rights of many women pensioners to have access to a full state pension, a matter which we debated briefly last week. Again, I hope that the Secretary of State can include that in his report. The Minister rightly referred in his opening remarks to the increases in the state pension age that will follow the Bill. Again, reviews of the proper operation of the implementation of that will be important. The Bill relates to the uprating of pensions in line with earnings. We have been given a date—I think that it is 2012—but we have also been told that the uprating might not happen for two or three years after that. It might well not happen until the end of that Parliament. Although I am not able to predict the dates on which Parliaments begin and end, it is possible that the uprating in line with earnings will not start until 2015. I hope that the timing of the report before the end of 2014 will, if necessary—I hope that it is not—act as strong corrective to any governmental wish to delay yet further the implementation of the uprating in line with earnings. The Minister will know that the Liberal Democrats have called for that uprating to take place immediately, and I remain of that view. Even if the Minister is not of that view, I hope that by including the report in the Bill under Government amendment (a) and by having to produce such a report and to bring it before Parliament, where we would expect to debate it, so that it could come under scrutiny and pressure from hon. Members about possible failure to deliver the content of the Bill, we will ensure that Ministers act quickly to do the decent thing in relation to the uprating in line with earnings and to introduce it, at least by their own timetable, inadequate though the Liberal Democrats believe it is. With those few words, I say that the Liberal Democrats will be happy for the House to pass these amendments.