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Pension Schemes Bill

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, on having a group of nine amendments all on her own.

We normally share groups rather than have them all on our own. This group considers how scale requirements interact with default pension arrangements where most savers remain invested. I have listened to the debate and, having spent a large part of my career in accountancy and advising clients, I know that the trouble is that the majority of clients are not expert enough to know what they should do with their pension. They seek advice from various organisations on what they should do. We should make sure that the quality of the advice they get suits their position in life. As other noble Lords have said, we are concerned about the overly rigid scale test, which could unintentionally narrow choice within defaults and push schemes towards one-size-fits-all designs.

Amendment 97 highlights the importance of allowing defaults that reflect members’ differing ages, health conditions, retirement plans and risk profiles. Amendments 97A to 101B probe—this is the point—whether the authority can take account of the combined value of assets across multiple default arrangements, rather than assessing each in isolation. Without this flexibility, schemes that offer well-designed cohort-based defaults could be penalised simply for tailoring provision.

Amendments 168A and 170A reinforce this point, seeking to ensure that schemes are not excluded from the market for moving beyond crude uniform defaults. Our concern is that defaults should be designed around member needs, not regulatory convenience. I hope the Minister will explain how the Bill avoids pushing schemes towards uniformity at the expense of suitability and long-term outcomes.

I hope the Minister does not regard the series of amendments in this group as combative. They are meant to try to help pensioners or future pensioners. It is wrong if the Government look for a simple process but do not look at the benefit for the people concerned. I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, who talked about what happens in gilts and the like. I come from a period in the chartered accountant profession when you always went into gilts in what you thought were the last few years of your working life. Now, things have changed. We have to look at what you do and when you do it, and those things depend on the people involved.

I hope the Minister will see that these amendments are trying to say that things should not be too prescriptive. They are not against what the Government are trying to do, which is look after people. But are doing it on a one-size-fits-all basis, which does not work in the real world that we are in. I hope the Government go back and think about this a little more so that, when we come to Report, we can be a little more innovative.