Clause 21
Pensions Bill
12:45 pm
James Purnell (Minister of State (Pensions Reform), Department for Work and Pensions; Stalybridge and Hyde, Labour)
The hon. Gentleman really does not need to worry. The subsection is there only out of respect for the Opposition, in that they might not support the personal accounts Bill that we are hoping to introduce. If that Bill did not command the support of Parliament, we would need to wind up the delivery authority, so this represents prudence. We are not taking Parliament for granted—which, as he knows, we do not like to do—but are including the measure so that we will not have to legislate again in order to get rid of the delivery authority.
I do not know whether that gives the hon. Gentleman sufficient reassurance. He also made a more general point about the phasing of the delivery authority. He and I might have slightly different views about how the process will work, so let me set out how we see it. The first of the three stages will be the advisory delivery authority, the second will be for it to have the power of executive authority over certain matters to be described and decided in the next Bill, and then we will go over to the personal accounts board. As we said in the White Paper, we do not plan to wind up the delivery authority until its job is done. There might be some overlap between the authority and the personal accounts board. It would be sensible to expect a large degree of continuity between the delivery authority and the personal accounts board. That does not mean that everybody who works for the authority would work for the board, as different skills might be needed, but we are keen to maintain the expertise of the authority during the transition to the board. That might give it a good incentive to provide us with advice.