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Postal Services Bill [HL]

My Amendments 42, 45A and 47 in this group probe the Government's intentions in Clause 16 a little further. Subsection (3) contains several powers that I am sure the Minister will protest are perfectly benign and useful, but which could certainly be used to make significant changes to the new pension scheme in the future. Paragraph (a) will apparently, according to the Government's memorandum to the DPRRC, be used for standard uprating of pension rights in line with the RPI, as the Civil Service and teachers’ pension schemes are. That is, of course, unexceptional. What is more concerning is that the Government have decided not to specify this use in the Bill. Uprating state pension rights in line with earnings rather than with inflation was a significant policy shift and new commitments on what measure to use in uprating various benefits and pensions have been specified in many different pieces of legislation. Does not the Minister think that it would be reassuring to pensioners to have the basis of any uprating specified in the Bill? It would not only give them certainty but add welcome specificity to a widely drawn power. I am afraid that paragraph (b) is totally beyond my comprehension. I do not understand at all what it is for. A close reading of the Explanatory Notes and the memorandum seems to suggest that by considering a deferred pensioner as an active pensioner, it would be possible in certain cases to pay him more than would otherwise be the case. I do not understand why paragraph (b) would be needed in addition to paragraph (a) if that was all that this provision was required to do. I hope the Minister can explain it further. Paragraph (c) is similarly difficult and is not made any clearer by the reference in the memorandum to a piece of legislation which was repealed a long, long time ago. My next amendment probes subsection (4). Why have the Government not ensured that a new public scheme will be treated as an occupational pension scheme? Why is the matter being left uncertain once again? The new scheme has not unreasonably been compared with other schemes funded by the taxpayer—teachers and civil servants come to mind—but the legislation governing those is laid out following a set form in previous legislation. If the Minister wants to set up this scheme in such a way, why not say so here? Finally, on subsection (5), the Minister seems again to be saying in paragraph (a) that he will do something but then ensuring in paragraph (b) that he does not actually have to do it. The memorandum makes it clear that this subsection is to cover the contracted-out element of the Royal Mail pension scheme. Because of the unusual nature of the scheme, it needs to be brought specifically under Part 3 of the Pension Schemes Act 1993. Certain tweaks are known about, but instead of giving us a little more legislative certainty, we are to give the Minister the power to establish a scheme about which very little, or almost nothing, is known. The noble Lord, Lord Clarke, has tabled some very specific amendments in the following group, setting out an alternative way forward for handling the transferred RMPP liabilities. Without wishing to anticipate that debate, will the Minister, in answering my questions, give the Committee rather more detail about the scheme that he envisages and explain why so little detail has been given? I beg to move.