---

Pensions Bill

My Lords, I shall make a brief contribution. I apologise for going out for a meeting at 4.30 pm. I think this will be seen historically as a red letter day. It has taken a great many years to put together the work of the Pensions Commission under the distinguished chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Turner, who is not in his place. He has done a remarkable job alongside his other public work on climate change and for the Financial Services Authority. These issues have one thing in common—they require action to be taken in this generation for events 20 or 30 years hence. It is not easy to get this generation to take ownership of those responsibilities, particularly, as people have pointed out, when there is a credit crunch. Some people may say that this is the worst possible time to get people to pay 4 per cent more. I would say that this moment of truth for intergenerational responsibilities has to be taken on the chin, certainly in terms of the price of carbon and living on tick—for example, thinking that if you withdraw equity from your house, £100,000 will appear out of nowhere. These are obvious fallacies of the financial services industry, which have created a climate of mistrust that presents us with an even more difficult jigsaw puzzle than would have been the case otherwise. One thing that shines through all of this is compulsory saving, like Lord Keynes’s post-war credits, which is guaranteed to have a return in the economy. Whatever people say about big government, that is what people are going to trust at the end of the day. So if there is trust and confidence and as long as the economy can develop, both main parties and the Liberal Party would say that that has to represent some sort of consensus and presumption. Without being too awkward, I shall pick up what is perhaps a debating point made by the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale. Surely the very fact that it is difficult to sell a product satisfactorily to people with limited resources means that things will be difficult for those people. However, if you look at the analysis made by the noble Lord, Lord Turner, this is one of the ingredients as to why we have arrived at this solution. I hope that this consensus will continue. The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, will, no doubt, comment on the degree to which consensus remains. I very much hope that it still stands between all the parties, although I am beginning to be a bit nervous about it. The degree of consensus may not be quite as strong as one might have hoped, because after the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, mentioned consensus, he spent the next five minutes saying ““but”” a lot. Perhaps the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, can tell us whether there is still a consensus between the TUC, the CBI, Help the Aged and everyone else, including the Engineering Employers’ Federation, which is not normally known for being soft on workers’ rights and collective bargaining.