Retirement Income Reform Bill
2:00 pm
Mr Edward Garnier (Harborough, Conservative)
I beg to move,
That, if proceedings on the Retirement Income Reform Bill are not completed at this day's sitting, the Committee do adjourn to a date and time to be fixed by the Chairman.
I have deliberately constructed the sittings motion in that way because it is my earnest hope that the Committee will complete its deliberations today. Unless someone particularly wants to prolong them, I trust that we shall be done and dusted later this afternoon.
Before I discuss the Bill and the amendments, I want to thank you, Mr. Atkinson, for taking the Chair. I trust that you will find our deliberations interesting and efficiently conducted. I also thank the Economic Secretary for taking the place of the Financial Secretary, who is, I believe, on maternity leave. Parts of the Bill deal with gender neutrality, and I look forward to hearing whether the Government are interested in gender equality in the provision of annuities. I am reasonably sure that the matter is of interest to all members of the Committee.
I thank members of the Labour party who are not members of the Government for taking part in our proceedings. People have become interested in pensions for many different reasons, although the Bill obviously deals with only a small part of the country's huge pensions crisis. None the less, all of us can, irrespective of our party political allegiances, share the aim of improving choice in pension provision. We can give those who are about to retire and those who will retire in the decades ahead greater independence in providing for their retirement, at a time when it is becoming increasingly difficult for people to be sure of their pensions.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Mr. Flight), who, with the Minister, has been battling through the Finance Bill for several weeks on the Floor of the House and in Committee. I am grateful to him for giving up the time to assist us with our deliberations. I also thank my other hon. Friends for their assistance today.
The Bill has all-party support and it achieved a majority of 101 in the Second Reading vote on 7 March. It therefore has the support of the House of Commons. The Government told us that the Hunting Bill had the support of the House and that it should not, therefore, be delayed on its way to the House of Lords. I ask the Committee to bear that in mind when we consider the Government's amendments.
As I said, the Bill has all-party support, and there are some long-standing friends of the pensions issue on the Labour Benches today. The right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) cannot be here, but his support is hugely welcome, as is that of other Labour Members
of the Committee. I thank the hon. Members for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) and for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Allan), who are Liberal Democrat party members, for being here today. Their presence demonstrates that the Bill has third-party support.
My hon. Friends and I have tabled only two amendments, which can be dealt with in a matter of minutes. I trust that we can discuss the Government amendments in a warm-hearted and constructive way, although it is my submission that they are designed to destroy the Bill by removing its building bricks. Were they all to be passed, the Bill would not exist as it did when the Commons considered it on Second Reading on 7 March. I therefore stress that to agree with the Government's amendments would be to disagree with the House of Commons on Second Reading—but of that, later.
I trust that the sittings motion is uncontroversial, and I repeat my thanks to all those who have come today.