Schedule 1 - The Pensions Regulator
Pensions Bill
11:00 am
Mr Nigel Waterson (Eastbourne, Conservative)
I was not intending to contribute on this point. However, it is important and we might as well deal with it now. The Occupational Pensions Regulatory Authority was set up under 1995 Act; it was established on 1 April 1996, but it only became operational on 6 April 1997. One cannot say that that era was more leisurely than ours. There were probably good reasons for that delay. Setting up a regulator from scratch is quite complicated. This is the first question—has the Minister reflected on whether, having taken a long time to produce the Bill, the Government are trying to do everything in too much of a hurry? The second point is about compensation, which he mentioned. The then Government bought themselves time by working out a pragmatic way of dealing with the immediate problems of Maxwell pensioners who faced destitution, so that the big issues could be examined more carefully in a longer time scale.
Amendment agreed to.