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Pensions Bill

If the hon. Lady really had taken an active interest in pensions for all those years she would understand both the difference between a DB scheme and a DC scheme in terms of the issue of mis-selling and that the original Turner report made its recommendations on the assumption that there would be no expansion of means-testing—indeed, that the opposite would be the case. I have made a request to the Secretary of State and the Minister in the spirit of the consensus of us all wanting these reforms to work. I hope that that will be taken up in the winding-up speech or at any stage over the next few weeks, as it is essential that we get this right. Let me turn to other areas where there remain issues that need to be debated. Ministers need to explain in much more detail how they are addressing the issue of levelling down. Concerns have been raised about that in the debate, and it has been raised as a concern by the PPI and actuaries over the past few weeks. Ministers have not had that much to say about it. The Secretary of State tried to reassure us but did not address all the issues. There is a danger that many small employers will choose to close down existing provision, including some of the stakeholder schemes that got off the ground as part of the Government's last set of reforms. The risk is that if levelling down does take place the amount saved will be affected and there will not be the increase in overall saving levels that we want to see. Ministers should remember that the success of these reforms will depend not only on attracting more savers, but on generating higher overall saving. That is why the Secretary of State must do better in ensuring a level playing field for different types of pension provision, and particularly different types of pension product. It would be disastrous if existing provision was downgraded because it was easier to operate a system of personal accounts. That is why the Government's failure to sort out the issue of auto-enrolment for group personal pensions is so disappointing. There is no logical reason why auto-enrolment should be acceptable for personal accounts but not for group personal pensions. We know that, in fact, the reason that has not happened is European law, but why have not Ministers sorted this out in Brussels? Does anyone actually believe that the Secretary of State's French counterpart would not have sorted things out by now? There might even be solutions that avoid Brussels altogether. There have been detailed discussions between the Secretary of State's Department and the industry, which has identified possible solutions to this problem, but he and his team have not acted on them. Why not? Will he introduce amendments to the Bill in Committee that will address this issue?