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Pensions Bill

I am not minded to press the new clause to a vote, but that does not mean to say that I am wholly satisfied by what the Minister has said. In an attempt to be reassuring, he kept telling the House that the introduction of personal accounts is not going to be a big bang. I am delighted to hear that, but as has been said, we do not want a terminal 5 moment, either. Terminal 5 was a massive project of its sort, and it was not a big bang—it was phased in, but phase 1 turned into an unmitigated disaster. That is the kind of issue that I am trying to get at in this debate—the nature of the review and its conclusions. I shall certainly take the opportunity to see Tim Jones and get to the bottom of where he thinks things now stand, and yes, of course, if I am told things in commercial confidence I shall not tell anybody else. However, we need to find out precisely what is happening in practical terms. The Minister said—I wrote it down—that Tim Jones had delivered his report on time. Is the report in such a condition that it can be placed in the Library or made available in what lawyers call a ““redacted version””, so that we can at least see the highlights? The issue is not as simple as whether we will get from now to 2012 in one piece, as it were. Presumably, there is a series of triggers, or things that have to happen by a certain date between now and then, hence the charts to which the Minister referred. Once those deadlines start not to be met, the whole thing begins to slide off schedule. That is the key, and without wishing today to detain the House for any great time on the issue, I should say that that is the sort of thing that we will look for. The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, Central (Jim Cousins) reminded us that the measures are part of the Turner package. According to Turner, they were to have been delivered two years earlier, in 2010. We have had this debate on other parts of the Turner package, such as on decoupling, and I hope that we shall come to the issue of restoring the earnings link, which is another key part of the package. Such things, including increasing the state pension age, all go together and we let the timings of the essential ingredients of the Turner package start to drift apart at our peril. I was surprised that the Minister put a lot of emphasis on Royal Assent. Technically, of course, lots of things can happen only when the Bill gets Royal Assent. I do not want to be churlish, but the Bill has been a long time out of Committee and only now are we having Report stage and Third Reading; moving a bit faster was in the Government's gift. However, leaving that aside, I should say that the Minister talked about contracts of substantial value being put out for tender. I accept that. However, unless he is making out that the Reuters report is a complete fabrication, it should be clear that lots of people—allegedly 100 consultants—are already working night and day to do something. They are not waiting for Royal Assent, and nor will their bills. What are they doing in the absence of Royal Assent, and how much is it costing? One or two distinguished members of the Select Committee on Work and Pensions are here; it is not for me to say, but perhaps the Committee thinks it is important to look into the potential costs overrun and how the project is being managed. That brings me to the Donald Rumsfeld—the ““known unknowns””—point. We do not expect Mr. Jones, and certainly not the Minister, to walk on water. We expect Mr. Jones and his team to deal with the known unknowns, and I presume that the things that he knows are outside his control are clearly flagged up in the report. Even on the Conservative Benches, we do not expect him to be aware of the unknown unknowns, about which the Minister was also concerned. No one expects the Minister to guarantee absolutely April 2012 as the start date—all sorts of things could have happened by then, not least to the economy as a whole. However, to come to the costs overrun point, it would be worrying enough if the Minister had said to the House, ““We can't tell at this stage what the cost overruns are or are likely to be,”” but as I understood it—I accept that I paraphrase—he said, ““We can't say in any event whether there are cost overruns because we do not know what the cost should be.”” It seems even more worrying that at the moment we have no idea about what the costs will be, apart from a vague figure plucked out of the Turner process. However, it is clear that costs are being incurred, Royal Assent or no Royal Assent, and we need a clearer notion of what rate and level they have already reached.