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Pensions Bill

Of course, there will be a debate in Committee and I am sure that we will have a substantial opportunity to consider all the issues. I look forward to that. Let me deal with one of the hon. Gentleman's key points, which was whether it will pay to save. People will face health and employment problems—the sort of risks that we all face in our daily lives. It is vital that, if those problems arise, and people retire without adequate provision, there is a state safety net for them. Most people should still be encouraged to save, which is what the Pensions Commission recommended and what we are seeking to encourage as part of the process of pension reform. By disproportionately focusing on those people who might get low returns because of health or employment problems, we need to avoid creating a problem by which those who would benefit from saving lose out. We therefore need to be careful about how the debate is developed. We should ensure that those who could benefit substantially from years of employer contributions and investment returns are enabled to do so, and we should not encourage people to gamble on what benefit levels will remain in place for the next 20, 30 or 40 years. The hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell has been very vocal on the issue, and he has gone to great lengths to try to rewrite Conservative social philosophy. He told the BBC that the state should give an explicit guarantee to those who save, which is an innovative idea. He has asked me to welcome innovative ideas, and I am certainly interested in that idea, which I want to discuss because it seems to undermine the idea of individual responsibility. It would create an administrative nightmare, and it would probably create a nightmare for the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Osborne), who would have to find the money to fund it. Where would he find that money? Let us look at the detail of what the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell has said. He wants to create a"““mechanism that would allow people to retrieve contributions””." What does he mean by that? Let us explore the idea. Is he saying that he wants only those in personal accounts ““to retrieve contributions””, or will that apply to every pension scheme now and in the future? Or is he saying that all private pension schemes should make provision to repay premiums to anyone who gets less than pension credit levels? Is the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell saying that pension schemes with automatic enrolment should have to repay the premiums? That is what he seems to be saying. Today, one in six people are automatically enrolled—they work for companies such as Tesco. Some of them will retire, and some of them will be on pension credit. Is he saying that those pension schemes must repay those premiums? Or is he saying that the retrieval mechanism would apply only to personal accounts, in which case would that not give personal accounts a competitive advantage against private schemes by providing a state guarantee? That would be an extraordinary step for the Conservatives to take. I am sure that the pensions industry would not be terribly impressed by those proposals, which would mean that it would have to repay anyone who is on pension credit. If he were in government, he would have to come up with a plan to pay the extra funding for all the people who would have to claim extra pension credit. It is an ill-thought-out proposal.