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Pensions Bill

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, for his support. I agree that what the Minister said is gobbledegook. I am a plain sort of person; I believe that Bills should say what the Government mean them to say. If the Government say that they are going to set up a pension scheme in order to deliver personal accounts, the Bill should say that they will—whether it is ““shall”” or ““will””. The Government’s argument is that they want to use the power to do two kinds of things: to set the scheme up and later to amend it. That may well be the case, but we should be clear in the Bill that the Government must set up this pension scheme, otherwise the employer duty in Clause 3 is either meaningless or impossible to comply with, which would be unacceptable. The Government could make a further amendment for powers if they wanted to.