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Pensions Bill [HL]

My Lords, I never mind saying this, but the Minister has given us an almost entirely satisfactory response. I can understand the noble Baroness’s desire to get on with this, so perhaps I might counsel the Minister to look at two interim approaches in parallel. First, if he could do anything along the lines of my amendment, it would help. Secondly, we should try to avoid these schemes accumulating further. If he can stop the rot and prevent any more of these little pots being created from now on or fairly soon, it would be very helpful. However, I fully understand, not least because of the comments made by my noble friend Lord Flight, that these are complicated matters. I suspect that we will have only one go at this—it probably will not be in the Pensions Bill with which we are now dealing—and we need to get it right. All power to the Minister’s arm on the overall concept, but I hope that he will remember at the same time to look either at whether existing arrangements and payments can be smoothed or at stopping the rot by preventing any additional schemes being created. However, in the spirit of what has been a very constructive debate, I beg leave to withdraw my sub-amendment. Amendment 34A (to Amendment 34) withdrawn.