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Pensions Bill

I will pass on that last question, if I may. The noble Baroness’s amendments would make it a requirement that the Secretary of State obtain a report from the Government Actuary advising on the method for determining actuarial equivalents and that the recommendation in the report be adopted. Incidentally, I am not surprised that the noble Baroness referred to contracted-out rebates; I thought that they might just be raised in the context of this issue. Determining the method of actuarial equivalence will clearly require a great deal of expert knowledge. That is why we have made provision in the Bill to obtain a report from the Government Actuary’s Department. I assure the Committee that it is fully our intention to make use of that provision, and we will make a decision based on that advice. I can, however, see considerable merit in the amendments. But there is a slight concern, about which we need to talk to the Government Actuary. It is suggested that the draft amendments compel the Government to accept the Government Actuary’s advice. That depends a bit on whether there is going to be a range of advice or a single proposition, and whether that places the responsibility for determining actuarial equivalence on the Government Actuary rather than on the Secretary of State. We would like to discuss that further. Subject only to that, I am hopeful that we can bring back on Report something that has the same effect, if not the same wording, as the noble Baroness’s amendments, because we are fully in agreement. The noble Baroness rightly raised the issue of quality assurance. There are two strands of the work. There is the calculation of the growth of the additional pension before the contracted-out deduction. Of course that is a calculation that happens currently when people retire, but it is being done specially in 2012 to try to get this system under way. There are already systems in place that cater for that, but we would certainly consider the use of the NAO to quality-assure these calculations. That has not yet been looked at in detail. The suggestion is helpful and we will take it forward. That is as much reassurance as I can give the noble Baroness. I hope that, on that basis, she will feel able not to press the matter today.