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Pensions Bill

I am not sure whether the Opposition are going to vote against Second Reading. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention because it comes from an authoritative source. The hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell seems to be backing away. He likes to grab a headline by threatening to vote against the Bill, as he does the whole time, through his spin on various policies, but now he is confronted with a decision, it will be interesting to see what he does in the Lobby. He seemed to indicate in the Financial Times today that he was not going to vote against Second Reading, but he is also continually seeking to derail the progress of the Bill. He may vote against it on Third Reading—who knows? Before closing I want to address head-on the issue of means-testing and whether it pays for people to save, which was raised earlier by the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose). The hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell raised questions on this point in the Financial Times today. He previously proposed a refund of contributions for those people who get less means-tested support in retirement because they have contributed to personal accounts. I ask the House to keep in mind three points. First, our pension reforms lead to less means-testing rather than more. Secondly, those who receive means-tested benefits should still be better off in retirement if they save. The Government's creation of the savings credit, together with the right for all to take a pension lump sum, ensures that. Thirdly, nobody can be sure which individuals will end up needing means-tested support. What we can say is that few aspire to that, so we must say with a united voice that the downside of people not saving outweighs the small risk of their saving and later regretting that in 30 or 40 years' time, when individuals might be in who knows what predicaments. I also have one simple question for the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell. Does he stand by his announcement regarding a scheme of refunding contributions or has he recognised that such a scheme would result in chaos and threaten not just Government finances, but the finances of pension schemes throughout the country?