Clause 19
Pensions Bill
12:30 pm
Nigel Waterson (Shadow Minister, Work & Pensions; Eastbourne, Conservative)
The lack of caffeine has momentarily spoilt my concentration. I am grateful to the Minister who has laboured long and hard to try to reassure us. I have nothing much more to say on all our relatively minor amendments. The key issue is amendmentNo. 21. I am delighted at the Minister’s reassurance that he has an open mind about the cap. I do not think that I could have left him under any illusion as to how strongly we and others feel on this subject.
The Minister talked about levelling down really being levelling up. We have heard this before at one of the interminable seminars. I did not believe it then, and I certainly do not believe it now. Yes, of course, there is nothing in law at the moment that makes good employers or any employers make the provisions that they do. I accept that. But they do, and that is presumably for the right reasons or for hard-headed reasons of attracting the right employees and keeping them in post in the long run. Equally, there would be nothing to stop them from levelling down in the way that we have described once these reforms come in. In fact there will be a positive incentive.
One interesting survey of companies—perhaps the one to which the Minister referred— suggested that many employers would not make any changes. It subsequently emerged that the human resources directors of those companies had been surveyed, not the finance directors. I have a feeling that all over the country finance directors are doing their sums. On top of all the extra burdens and costs that have been heaped on pension schemes in the lifetime of this Government, finance directors are doing their sums on what may be a potential doubling in the number of participants under auto enrolment.