---

Pensions Bill

moved Amendment No. 58: 58: Schedule 1, page 80, line 42, leave out ““and”” and insert— ““( ) any information the Secretary of State directs relating to the financial position of any pension scheme established under section 66 for which the trustee corporation acts as trustee, and”” The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendment No 61. These amendments concern financial reporting of the personal accounts pension scheme. In Committee we debated the financial relationship between the trustee corporation and the personal accounts pension scheme and whether there would be a clear dividing line between the two. Since then the Minister has helpfully shared with me the emerging thinking on how the two bodies will operate. As I understand it, the current view is that the pension scheme will receive contributions and invest the proceeds and will pay charges to the trustee corporation. All of the other financial transactions—largely costs—will be captured in the trustee corporation. I should say that this arrangement is unlike what I understand to be private sector pension practice where there is a corporate pension trustee that is a largely dormant body with all the transactions going through the pension scheme, but I do not express a view on the arrangements that the Government are setting up. I can see that with the possible front-loading of costs, it has optical advantages if they are kept separate from the pension scheme. On the other hand, the costs properly belong to the personal accounts pension scheme, and it would be undesirable if at some later date, for example, the trustee corporation were wound up without all of its costs having been passed on to the pension scheme. However, the concern that I am focusing on with these amendments is the more basic one of transparency. Since the contributions and investments will be shown in one set of accounts, those of the pension scheme, and the costs will be captured elsewhere, in the trustee corporation, it will not be possible to form a view on what is happening to the personal accounts scheme overall unless those two sets of accounts and any reports are brought together. Amendment No. 58 amends paragraph 17 of Schedule 1, which deals with the annual report of the trustee corporation. Paragraph 17(2)(b) requires the annual report to contain information about the financial position of the trustee corporation. My amendment repeats that for any personal account pension scheme. Amendment No. 61 amends Schedule 1(20). Sub-paragraph (6) requires the Secretary of State to lay the audited accounts of the trustee corporation before Parliament. There is no similar requirement for the accounts of the personal accounts pension scheme, so Amendment No. 61 requires them to be laid at the same time. The effect of the two amendments is that financial information about the pension corporation will always be accompanied by financial information about the personal accounts pension scheme as a whole, so that a proper picture of the whole can be seen. In Committee, when we were debating the issue of audit committees, the Minister said: "““Although the two sets of accounts are separate, they are so closely linked that it is inconceivable that one can be looked at without an examination of the other””." That is my point. He continued: "““I can say that the scheme members and Members of Parliament will see both sets of accounts”” —[Official Report, 2/7/08; col. 332.]." That sounds fine, but it is not what the Bill says. The Bill has specific provisions about the accounts of the trustee corporation but nothing whatever about those of the pension scheme, which is why I have tabled the amendments to see whether we can make some progress on achieving that transparency. I beg to move.