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Pensions Bill

moved Amendment No. 41: 41: Clause 12, page 6, line 32, leave out from ““than”” to end of line 33 and insert ““the annual equivalent of the amount of the primary threshold, and (b) not more than the annual equivalent of the amount of the upper earnings limit. ( ) The primary threshold and the upper earnings limit are the amounts set under section 5 of the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992 (c. 4) for the tax year in which the pay reference period commences.”” The noble Baroness said: Amendment No. 41, for the avoidance of doubt, is a probing amendment. It is the first of a couple of amendments which seek to find out what the Government's policy is in relation to the band for qualifying earnings. The curious amounts in the Bill are the 2006-07 primary threshold and upper earnings limit for national insurance contributions purposes. We understand those are to be uprated in line with earnings. The Pensions Commission originally proposed using the national insurance top and bottom limits for the band of earnings, and the Government in their first White Paper said that they agreed with the Pensions Commission that the band proposal was about right. In the December 2006 White Paper, the one which set out more detail about personal accounts, they said—and this is in a footnote to paragraph 6.3: "““When launched, the limits for the personal accounts earnings band will be aligned with the Primary Threshold and Upper Earnings Limit for National Insurance contributions””." That implies that in 2012 this scheme would be picking up the then primary threshold and upper earnings limit. Since December 2006 we have had the now infamous 2007 Budget—infamous largely because of the ill-judged attempted abolition of the 10 pence tax rate. One way of paying for that particular package is to raise the upper earnings limit of national insurance—as the Minister well knows because we are debating that in the context of another Bill—to the higher rate threshold for income tax purposes. So the upper earnings limit is rising quite a lot. I ask in these amendments whether the Minister will set out for the House what policy now drives the setting of the qualifying earnings band. At the bottom end will it be linked with a primary threshold? If it is going to be the primary threshold in 2012, that is unlikely to be the same thing as setting the 2006 level uprated in line with earnings, because if the primary threshold remains in line with the personal allowance for income tax purposes the two will have diverged. Similarly at the upper earnings limit level it is likely to be raised to beyond the level that would be achieved by indexing 2006-07. So this is a probing amendment to invite the Minister to set out their policy, if indeed they have one for this. I beg to move.