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Financial Assistance Scheme (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2007

Okay. That structural change in the tax system was particularly focused on the regime which existed before the change, which in effect encouraged dividends rather than retention—one of the issues around an imputation system. It was therefore part of a package of measures to generally create more stability and a better structure for the UK corporate regime. That was part of building stability for the economy as a whole, and part of building a successful framework for corporate Britain. If you look at it in the round, that was the right decision. That reduction in corporation tax in itself gave companies a greater capacity to fund contributions to pension schemes. I also remind the noble Lord that that structural change was partly something which his Government had done previously. The rate of imputation was always linked to the basic rate of tax and, as that changed, the imputation credit progressively reduced. Therefore, pension schemes under his Government had a progressively smaller payable tax credit to recover for their assets. That was done without any accompanying change in the rate of corporation tax. What really affected pension schemes, as we know—the Turner commission has emphasised and validated this—was growing longevity. The phrase of the noble Lord, Lord Turner, was the ““fool’s paradise”” of living with assumptions of asset returns which were not realistic in the long term. That was not helped by the regime which limited the extent to which surpluses could be built in funds, and gave rise to a whole raft of pension holidays under the regime which his Government set in train. A combination of issues affected defined benefit schemes. The experience of the UK is no different to what has happened elsewhere in the world. The demise of defined benefits schemes has been at an accelerated rate in the US compared to the UK. Does the noble Lord wish to intervene?