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Pensions Bill

I have given notice that I wish to debate the question whether Clause 74 stand part of the Bill because I would like the Minister to explain why, for a limited-life organisation, which as noble Lord reminded us a moment ago PADA is, such an elaborate mechanism as a non-executive committee is being created. The non-executive committee is a new Labour invention. It can be traced to Mr Ed Balls’s ideas of governance, which saw the light of day in the Bank of England Act 1998. It has since been repeated in some legislation, including the Pensions Act 2004, but it is far from universal practice. For example, the Statistics Board, which was created by statute last year, is not encumbered with one. I shall not today argue against the concept of the non-executive committee. It is true that the Bank of England experiment has worked only because successive courts of the Bank of England have devised workarounds that bypass the strict letter of that Act. The Government’s latest consultation paper on financial stability promises modernisation of the court. It will be interesting to see whether the modernisation of 1998 has stood the test of time. If it has not, and if the draft banking Bill that we are promised by the Summer Recess contains changes, I may want to revisit that issue. For today, I am asking the Minister to say why the Government are bothering to set up the elaborate non-executive directors committee. PADA will last until 2012 or a bit beyond—we will come to that later. Other bodies manage without the committee, so why cannot PADA? The board comprises largely non-executives in any event. Even if PADA goes up to its maximum of nine members and all remaining spaces are filled by executive directors, there will still be a majority of non-executives on it. PADA already has the power to set up committees under the 2007 Act. If a non-executive committee is a good idea, PADA can perfectly well set one up without taking up the legislative space that the clause involves. I look forward to hearing the Government’s rationale for Clause 74.