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Pensions Bill

Before I decide what to do with my amendment, I shall ask the Minister a couple of specific questions. First, are the Government insistent that the new scheme must be satisfied for every employee in the land who comes within its scope? Are they unwilling to accept any form of averaging? Throughout the Bill, I have constantly said that the best is the enemy of the good. We are talking about getting millions of people into pension saving. Is it not good enough to have 99.5 per cent meeting the standard? I keep hearing from the Minister that we have to do this at the level of every single employee. Secondly, in relation to the possibility that employers might manipulate their earning patterns or their pay structures in order to get some apparent advantage from the rules, does the Minister not accept that the compliance regime could be amended to work perfectly well to deal with that? The compliance regime could underpin, just as it will be able to deal with employers who induce their employees to opt out and things like that. It would be relatively easy to define a test that could be used by the Pensions Regulator in cases of employer actions or omissions for some deliberate purpose. I should be grateful if the Minister could answer those questions.