Clause 40 - Scheme returns: supplementary
Pensions Bill
2:45 pm
Mr George Osborne (Tatton, Conservative)
I have only one query for the Minister about what, as he said, is an otherwise fairly straightforward clause. Subsection (4)(a) states:
''A scheme return notice in respect of a registrable scheme . . . must require all registrable information in relation to the scheme''.
That is common sense. However, subsection (4)(b) states that the notice
''may require other information which the Regulator reasonably requires for the purposes of the exercise of its functions in relation to the scheme.''
In other words, it introduces not a get-out clause, but a wide-ranging power for the regulator to require other information. What is the point of devising a scheme return, consulting the industry about the information that should be on it and making a decision about what information is needed to do the job, but then suddenly deciding that the regulator can ask for any other information which it ''reasonably requires''? Presumably that is the regulator's own definition, provided of course that it was accepted. The provision seems clearly wide-ranging and I should be grateful if the Minister would explain why.