Clause 38 - Duty of the Regulator to issue scheme return notices
Pensions Bill
2:45 pm
Mr George Osborne (Tatton, Conservative)
I have a couple of minor queries about the issuing of scheme returns. I wanted to question the need for the long period mentioned in subsection (3)(a), which says that the regulator only has to issue the demand for information within three years of the regulator being informed that there is a new scheme. Three years strikes me as quite a long time; I should be interested to know why the Government chose that period.
There was some confusion in my mind when I was reading the Bill about the following: under clause 37(2), once the scheme is set up, the trustees and managers have to send in certain registrable information within three months. However, clause 38 seems to imply that the decision to comply with clause 37 is voluntary; clause 38(3)(b) says that
''if the trustees or managers have complied with paragraph (b) of section 37(2)''
they only have to provide information a year later. That seemed to imply that there was a voluntary element to complying with the previous clause and the request for information. I may have misunderstood, but that is how the matter seemed to me.
To reiterate my first point, why such a long period? Why three years? Why not one year, as might seem more reasonable?