---

Pensions Bill

My Lords, during our discussions on the Bill, one of the issues that raised a lot of controversy was the report that the Government intended to tell occupational pension schemes that in future they must apply the CPI rather than the retail prices index. That certainly led to a lot of opposition from people in occupational schemes. It also led to a lot of opposition from people in public sector schemes, because I gather that the Government are applying the CPI to public sector schemes instead of the retail prices index, which of course produces—currently, anyway—much larger increases than the CPI. I should therefore be grateful for confirmation from the Government that if an occupational scheme desires to continue with the RPI it will not be forced to apply the CPI, and that if it wishes to apply the retail prices index it will be able to do so, even though that is likely to produce—and will continue to be likely to produce—larger increases than the CPI.