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Pensions Bill

Does the Minister accept that the brief he has just read out was very much couched—and the code suggests—to mean that it is not in the public interest for people to serve longer than 10 years? That is not, in my view, a reason to have an absolute ban on anybody under any circumstances going on for more than eight years. It seems to me that the sort of background he was giving about balance of corporate memory, experience and so on—I speak from experience of many pension fund boards—is that in some circumstances it is right that people should be able to go on longer. To move from suggestions in a code to an absolute ban does not seem proportionate. I do not think an absolute ban is sensible.