Clause 31 - Appointments by Regulator
Pensions Bill
11:00 am
Professor Steve Webb (Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Work & Pensions; Northavon, Liberal Democrat)
I assure the Committee that there are plenty in the pipeline.
The hon. Gentleman raised another, serious, issue; I may risk inducing another intervention when I say that I find it slightly startling to find a Conservative Member worrying about the ravages of the free market, and worrying about competition in trustees leading to a fiercely competitive market, where there was minimum cost but where trustees might somehow exploit schemes or employers.
It is not clear to me, with respect to the clause or the amendments, whether we are dealing with cases in which, for example, a trustee is prohibited or suspended and the regulator replaces him with someone else, or with cases in which a scheme is to be wound up and the regulator appoints an independent trustee to see to that.
That brings me back to the issue to which a satisfactory response was not received on Tuesday: the way in which trustees' costs mount up. A response that was mentioned on the Labour Benches on Tuesday was to nationalise the process. I have on occasion mooted the idea that there should at least be a not-for-profit option for the process of winding up a scheme or of acting as an independent trustee.
Very often, there is not enough money in the funds in question, and it seems immoral that that should be the chance for someone to make a fast buck. If there is a public sector body—the regulator—appointing a trustee, I cannot see why that should be an opportunity for someone to make a profit. The private sector having gone wrong, and the regulator having put in a trustee as a result, it would seem that the state should ensure that the process is properly undergone. The trustees should thus, for example, act on the regulator's behalf—perhaps even as employees of the regulator, although I do not know whether that is consistent with the spirit of the Bill.
Whoever were to pay in such a case—employer or scheme—I should be worried if they had to line the pockets of a trustee who was in it for the money. Once things have gone wrong with a scheme and there is not enough money for the pensioners and the workers anyway, everything possible should be done to minimise the call on the fund. I ask the Minister for reassurances that the regulator would adopt that approach.