Schedule 6
Pensions Bill
10:30 am
Nigel Waterson (Shadow Minister, Work & Pensions; Eastbourne, Conservative)
Good morning, Mr. Gale. I shall deal briefly with the amendments. May I say at the outset that they are not at the epicentre of the Opposition’s strategy on the Bill, in case the Minister was worried? They deal with two small points—you might even say they were niggling if you were in a churlish mood, Mr. Gale—and probe the Government’s position on committees.
Of course we accept that the delivery authority will have committees, and possibly even sub-committees. I cannot remember the Minister’s exact phrase, but he said in an earlier debate that the system would be “lean and mean”. It will be a smallish, focused body if it does its job properly, and it will have a relatively short life. It therefore seems a little counter-intuitive for it to be weighed down by a system of committees and sub-committees. The point behind amendment No. 16 is therefore simple: the requirement that
“at least one person who is either a member or an employee of the Authority”
serve on a committee will not necessarily provide the control over burgeoning bureaucracy that we seek. The probing amendment proposes that a majority of committee members should be members or employees of the authority, so that they can control matters and ensure that any relevant outside expertise is drawn into the committee.
Paragraph 10 would be removed by amendmentNo. 17, because committees are one thing and sub-committees are quite another. We hope that the authority will not become a burgeoning leviathan—it should have a short, focused life if it does its job properly.
The Minister for Pensions Reform (James Purnell) rose—