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Postal Services Bill [HL]

I am happy to write to the noble Lord to set out the precise provisions in the Act to see how close they are. The point I want to stress is that we are trying to replicate the facilities available to occupational trust-based schemes provided by Section 67 of the 1995 Act. The starting point is a general prohibition on impairment of accrued rights, which is what Section 67 is about. It says that you can do that if certain things are in place, in particular a consent process. However, there is a further provision which states that if things are set down in a prescribed manner, possibly in regulation, that can be done in addition. I stress that this provision should not be read as assuming that the Secretary of State can arbitrarily assume a directed, prescribed manner relating just to this scheme. That is not the intent of it. It is meant simply to replicate what would be available continually for the RMPP. Indeed, I believe that these provisions have been used by the scheme in fairly recent times.