Clause 13 - Provision of information,
Pensions Bill
4:30 pm
Mr Nigel Waterson (Eastbourne, Conservative)
I endorse the hon. Gentleman's important point; he kindly attributed the theme to my hon. Friend the Member for Havant. Certainly, even the best employers are nervous about the fact that they can end up being responsible for mis-selling by giving advice that turns out, through no fault of their own, to be duff. As the hon. Gentleman said, who can be against provision of information, education and assistance?
Apart from strongly endorsing that point, I wish to ask the Minister two or three questions. Subsection (1)(a) covers work-based pension schemes, so I presume that we are talking about the gamut of schemes and not only defined benefit, defined contribution, stakeholder, hybrid and corporate self-invested personal pension schemes. That is a good thing.
I wish to query—unusually from my perspective—subsection (4), which states that
'' 'assistance' does not include financial assistance''.
While I understand why the Treasury wants that provision to be part of the Bill, it seems that circumstances may arise in which it would be beneficial for the regulator to provide funding for training courses and so on. I am not talking about vast sums of money. One of the problems in the Bill that we shall come to later when we deal with trustees is that we are in danger of producing professional trustees. Ordinary folk, including even quite well-experienced and qualified people, may not be able or may not wish to take on the role of trustees with occupational pension schemes because of the onerous and complicated nature of such duties.
Various people in the industry have told me that there is a feeling that whether or not it is the Government's intention—it might be a matter of policy—they may end up with professional trustees being the norm. That is fine if a firm is running a big, corporate pension scheme, but not if it is a small
company with a few members, as paying a professional trustee or trustees to run a small scheme would be an aggravated cost. Is it not worth while to turn back as far as we can the trend that is set out in other parts of the Bill by trying to ensure that, when appropriate, existing trustees are given some financial assistance?
The hon. Member for Cardiff, West picked up on the point about conflicting desires. Many people wish to see more members of schemes acting as trustees. All things being equal, such action is valuable and should be encouraged when appropriate. However, will they feel outgunned and outclassed in a system that is becoming very complicated? Should they not be given the option, perhaps as a priority, of receiving effective training? My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West (Sir John Butterfill), who looks after our parliamentary pension fund, said that he and his fellow trustees were going on a training course or taking some exams. That is slightly rash, because what happens if they fail? But that is for another day.
On this occasion, however, the Government are being too modest. I do not see, as a matter of principle, why a system should not include financial assistance, particularly for training, and give people the wherewithal to continue undertaking such important tasks in what will become, with the best will in the world, an increasingly complex regulatory landscape.