Clause 2 - Registration of SaRA schemes
Rights of Savers Bill
2:45 pm
Stephen Timms (Minister for pensions, Department for Work and Pensions; East Ham, Labour)
On the point about the historic character of what is going on, it is true, so far as I am aware, that there have been only two precedents in which the Government succeeded in deleting all the clauses of a private Member’s Bill. What we do not know, of course, is how many attempts the Government have made to do that in the past 100 years. I suspect that that number is rather larger.
I suggest to my hon. Friends that, consistent with the view that I have expressed to the Committee, we should also resist clause 2, although it certainly is a fairly natural consequence of clause 1. Has the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington and Chelsea given any thought to the extent of the additional costs that might be involved in registering the accounts, given the risk-based approach that the regulator takes? I would be interested if he has any comments on that, but I urge my hon. Friends to resist clause 2.