Written Evidence to be reported to the House.
Pensions Bill
12:00 pm
David Yeandle: Thank you. My response is along the same lines as that of my colleague John Cridland. We have consistently supported the Government’s pensions reform agenda for the last two or three years, and we see the Bill as the final piece in the legislative jigsaw to implement these proposals. We are particularly pleased with the introduction of personal accounts, which we have always supported, in terms of both the auto-enrolment of employees and the modest compulsory employment contribution. We think that it will provide an important opportunity to save for retirement for many people who do not have that opportunity today.
We are also very pleased that, as part of the Bill, there will be we what we regard as an equally important part of the Government’s pensions reform programme: the start of what I hope is going to be a rolling programme of deregulation of personal and occupational pensions. We have some issues of detail as far as the Bill is concerned. I suspect we may cover some this afternoon. There are also some issues along the lines John mentioned—particularly relating to support for small businesses—which we think need to be addressed, but not necessarily during the course of the Bill itself.