---

Pensions Bill [HL]

My Lords, I want to say a brief word about Amendment 38, which is in the group. Clearly, the Johnson review looked at this issue and having weighed up both sides of the argument, recommended that the Government should proceed to legislate. The words of the recommendation were quite ambiguous. It said: "““We are therefore recommending that the Government legislate for the removal of the contributions cap in 2017””." One could read that as recommending legislating in 2017 for removal of the contribution cap, or as recommending legislating now. Actually, the text of the Johnson review does use the word ““now””—in other words, it should be part of this Bill—but because neither the Minister nor the Government are on record yet as saying why they have not chosen to follow that advice, it would be very helpful if this amendment could be probed in that manner.