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Pensions Bill

My Lords, I must first express my gratitude to Ministers for accepting that it would be right to put the review into a formal setting in the Bill. However, the amendment is a lot more definite than mine was. For one thing, the word ““must”” appears four times in it. I have never, in all my time in your Lordships’ House, seen any Act of Parliament, which this Bill will become, with the word ““must”” in it four times. The Government are still maintaining what my noble friend and I believe is a fiction—that personal accounts will start on or about 1 January 2012. I do not think that they will, so I was surprised to see in proposed new subsection (2) that the appointment of the individual to conduct the review, and the review itself, "““must be made on or after the later of (a) 1 January 2017””—" in other words, five years after the beginning of personal accounts—or at, "““(b) the end of five years beginning with the first day on which contributions are paid””." I suggest that proposed new paragraph (b) is a lot more likely than (a). However, having teased the Government slightly on this, I must say that I am more than content with the amendment.