Clause 63 - Publishing reports
Pensions Bill
9:45 am
Mr Nigel Waterson (Eastbourne, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 245, in
clause 63, page 40, line 11, leave out 'absolutely privileged' and insert 'subject to qualified privilege'.
We now get to the meat of today's debate. As we are talking about defamation, I will take this opportunity to put right a prima facie defamatory remark that was made about me in my absence by the Minister last week. He had the temerity to suggest that I might be a Manchester United supporter, the sub-plot being that because I am some sort of effete southerner I would be a natural supporter of Manchester United. I am not a southerner—and as for effete, I will leave that to you to decide, Mr. Griffiths. I am, of course, an enthusiastic supporter of Eastbourne Borough football club, which might not have made it on to the radar screen of many Committee members, but has a great future ahead of it.
The amendment concerns the sole point that I want to raise on the clause. I do not propose to provoke a clause stand part debate, because it is eminently sensible that the regulator should publish reports and that they should be as wide-ranging, detailed and informative as possible. As is clear from the amendment, I am concerned about whether we should simply put the stamp of absolute privilege on anything contained in such a report.
To anticipate the possible killer point in the Under-Secretary's reply, I must add that a mere glance at section 103 of the Pensions Act 1995 tells us, albeit in a form slightly different from the provision before us, that:
''For the purposes of the law of defamation, the publication of any matter by the Authority shall be absolutely privileged.''
Far be it for me to claim that the Conservatives have a monopoly of wisdom on those matters. However, I do not think that we as a Committee should simply translate from one piece of legislation to another a measure as important as this without at least giving it proper consideration.
Hon. Members will know that there is a major distinction between absolute and qualified privilege. It is a shame that my hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Mr. Osborne) is temporarily absent, because his predecessor gave his name to one of the major recent cases on privilege for parliamentary proceedings. Fortunately that case is not relevant to the point that I am arguing—