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Pensions Bill

That is an important issue that we need to guard against. Furthermore, it is clear from the work carried out by the PPI that there is a whole tranche of people—we do not know how many there are—who would be better off taking a lump sum and spending it as quickly as possible. That rather goes against the public policy aim that we all hold, which is that people should save for their retirement and have that money available for when they retire. The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, but that is just one of many issues that we need to grapple with. I said earlier that there was now a kind of reverse consensus on this issue. It is a big issue that needs to be addressed and we have all joined up in addressing it. I was therefore just a trifle taken aback the other day when I saw the reported remarks of the new chairman of the Personal Accounts Delivery Authority, Paul Myners. In a speech to the National Association of Pension Funds conference in Edinburgh, he was reported to have compared this situation to the introduction of mandatory seat belts in cars. He is reported to have said:"““There are a small number of people whose injuries are increased and even some people have died because they were wearing seatbelts””." He went on to make the point that that did not outweigh the point of having compulsory seatbelts. I think that we can all agree with that in the context of seatbelts. I took the trouble of finding out how many people are injured each year because of wearing seatbelts as opposed to not wearing them. According to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, about 1,100 people a year are injured in some way because they are wearing seatbelts rather than the opposite, but compared with the number of people with driving licences, that is a tiny proportion. I am a bit worried about whether anyone making the kind of assumption that Mr. Myners appears to be making would realise that such a tiny proportion was involved. The real issue here is that nobody knows. The numbers in the at-risk groups could be hundreds of thousands or millions. I suspect—this is my own hunch—that the figure is in the high hundreds of thousands, but we simply do not know, and we will not know until the modelling has been properly done. We are all working to that end. This is not a problem that can be dealt with head on by saying, ““Well, just because there is going to be some rough justice for some people, it does not mean to say that it is not a good idea.”” Yes, the prize is that, hopefully, millions will be drawn into saving for their retirement, admittedly by the use of inertia in most cases, when they are not doing so now. That has to be a major prize, but it cannot be achieved at the price of large numbers of people, often on very low incomes, being worse off or no better off. That is why the issue is important and why I greatly welcome the Government's change of heart, if I may put it that way. I am looking forward to our playing our full part in the process. It does matter, not just to the credibility of and confidence in the new system of personal accounts, but to all these people, however many there are, who are involved.