Danny Alexander (Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Work & Pensions; Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch & Strathspey, Liberal Democrat)

I beg to move amendment No. 78, in clause 3, page 2, line 18, leave out from ‘reached’ to end of line and insert ‘the age of 50’.

I want to use this probing amendment to discuss one of the central issues of this Bill: the questions whether and for whom it does or does not pay to save in a personal account. By adding the words “the age of 50”, this amendment addresses the question, which has been raised in both oral and written evidence, of the impact of those aged over 50 at the time of automatic enrolment. I stress that the Liberal Democrats strongly support the principle of automatic enrolment.

The Bill is clearly directed at a large target, including people who work in the private sector who are currently not making any provision for their retirement. In the oral evidence, particularly that given by Adair Turner and the other members of the Pensions Commission, the size of that group—potentially some 12 million people—was made clear. The potential benefits of the Bill for a large swathe of that group are therefore abundantly clear, and I certainly do not seek to question that. However, there are some people, though it is difficult at this juncture to know how many, for whom the question whether it will  pay for them to save in a personal account for their retirement is at least an open one. That question relates in particular to how, when they want to “decumulate” and take as a pension the pot of money that they have accumulated in their personal account, that pension interacts with whichever means-tested benefits they are in receipt of—pension credit, for example. We know from previous pensions legislation that by 2050 there will be somewhere in the region of 30 per cent., by the Government’s estimate, or 40 per cent., by the Pensions Policy Institute’s estimate, of people in receipt of pension credit, and the taper is even steeper for housing benefit.

A particular issue relates to people over 50. They will potentially enrol in a personal account late in their working life, and they may therefore have only 15 years, 10 years or even five years in which to accrue savings in their personal account pot. The questions that I have highlighted about how relatively small amounts interact with the means-tested benefits system are particularly acute for that group.

I draw the Committee’s attention to the written evidence submitted by the PPI regarding its assessment of the risks for various groups. The institute broke down the risk into low, medium and high risk of personal accounts being unsuitable. A medium-risk group are single people in their 40s and 50s with low earnings and full working histories. A high-risk group, although they would not be auto-enrolled, which is an important caveat, is single people in their 40s and 50s in 2012 on low-to-medium incomes who are self-employed.

There are particular potential risks for those over 50 who enrol in personal accounts in terms of whether or not they would receive enough money back to make it worth their while. Later, we will discuss other groups and how the advice and information regime that is put in place around personal accounts can help people to make decisions.

I also draw the Committee’s attention to other evidence. Help the Aged, for example, also made the point that it is important to ensure that it pays to save for all those who are auto-enrolled. Help the Aged drew our attention to those people whose state pension records are incomplete, those whose private pension fund value is low and those who are still renting their home in retirement—we will come to the final point later. Help the Aged believes that more needs to be done to protect people in those scenarios.

By tabling the amendment to lower the auto-enrolment age limit, I seek to probe the Minister’s intentions, particularly with regard to those aged over 50, in relation to measures that he might have in mind to ensure through advice, information or changes to the Bill that such people are protected or advised not to get into a situation in which they start saving in a personal account only to discover in retirement that it has not been worth while.

Andrew Selous (Shadow Minister, Work & Pensions; South West Bedfordshire, Conservative)

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey for explaining his amendment. On the face of it, it is a pretty blunt instrument with which to try to bring about the effect that he has discussed.

We are moving the state retirement age up to the age of 68, so we would be talking about knocking out 18 years, potentially, of earning contributions. For many people at lower wage levels earlier on in their working life, these are very important years of contributions into their personal accounts pot—contributions that would make a significant difference to their lives in retirement. It is probably for that reason that the Equality and Human Rights Commission was worried when they saw this amendment and urged Committee members to vote against it, if it were pushed to a vote. In fairness, the hon. Gentleman has said that that is not his intention. He has raised the whole issue of when it pays to save and I think we will have further debates on this later on. I am happy to see that this is purely a probing amendment.

Mike O'Brien (Minister of State (Pension Reform), Department for Work and Pensions; North Warwickshire, Labour)

The hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey said this was a probing amendment and I am happy to respond to it on that basis. It is true that there is concern about the point at which it pays to save. One of the areas that some of the stakeholder groups have raised is people over 50. Someone on median income of about £24,000 would be making contributions into a pension of about 8 per cent.: 4 per cent. from the employee, 3 per cent. from the employer and around 1 per cent. from tax relief. It would take someone on that income about 11 years to get a pension pot of up to £16,000. A pension pot of less than £16,000 could be taken by way of trivial commutation. The result is that people in their 50s who have been saving—providing they do not go above the £16,000—are likely to be significant beneficiaries of this sort of pension scheme. Far from them being losers, they are likely to benefit from being able to take a lump sum and will also have, in terms of their pension credit, a disregard. Many of those who are automatically enrolled would actually benefit even though they are over 50 years of age.

However, what of those who are auto-enrolled, do not realise that problems could arise and have pension pots beyond £16,000? They would be able to take 25 per cent. of the pension pot in a tax-free lump sum; they are making a 4 per cent. contribution, so about half the contribution was theirs. They would then be able to receive the remaining three quarters of their pension pot by way of income. So it is the case that even they would be in a position where they would be able to benefit to some extent from the contributions of both the employer and themselves.

Perhaps this is not the time to have the wider debate on the extent to which it pays to save, because this is a narrow amendment. But as far as people over 50 are concerned, our view is that the majority of those are likely to benefit. There may well be some who, in due course, might fail to benefit, but we are looking at a period into the 2020s before that is likely to arise to any significant extent, so the opportunities to deal with it over the longer term are evident.

I have some wider points that I wish to make in relation to the debate on whether it pays to save, but perhaps I will save those for another amendment.

Danny Alexander (Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Work & Pensions; Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch & Strathspey, Liberal Democrat)

I think, as the Minister says, we will have further opportunities during the course of  this bill to debate the broader issues more generally, and on that basis I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Andrew Selous (Shadow Minister, Work & Pensions; South West Bedfordshire, Conservative)

I beg to move amendment No. 13, in clause 3, page 2, line 27, leave out subsection (5) and insert—

‘( ) Subsection (2) does not apply if there are prescribed arrangements under which the jobholder is entitled to become an active member, with effect from the automatic enrolment date, of a qualifying scheme which is a personal pension scheme of a prescribed description.

( ) An order will be made under this section to prescribe the terms under which it is applicable, and the basis on which its application may be withdrawn with respect to specific scheme providers or employers.’.

Nicholas Winterton (Macclesfield, Conservative)

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 12, in clause 3, page 2, line 27, leave out ‘may’ and insert

‘shall within three months of this Act receiving Royal Assent.’.

Andrew Selous (Shadow Minister, Work & Pensions; South West Bedfordshire, Conservative)

Amendment No. 13 is a probing amendment which seeks to press the Minister on how we are going to deal with the vexed issue of what are referred to as either group personal pensions or workplace personal pensions—GPPs or WPPs.

It is important to put on record the extent of GPP provision at the moment. The excellent impact assessment produced by the Department tells us that in 2005 there were 3.3 million employees who were members of workplace personal pensions, of whom 2.1 million were receiving employer contributions of 3 per cent. or more. The value of total contributions to workplace personal pensions was around £6.7 billion in 2006-07. By any measure, this is a substantial part of the current pensions saving landscape.

I know that the Minister will not want to do anything within the Bill to undermine what is good provision and is for many people—for those 2.1 million workers, in any case—above the minimum employer contribution limit laid down in the Bill. There is a real danger, as far as new employees are concerned, of levelling down—of employees being offered less good pension provision and less than a 3 per cent. employer contribution—if we are not able to find a means of dealing with the current European Union constraint on the UK, which prohibits auto-enrolment of employees into GPPs.

We had a roundabout discussion in the evidence sessions on what we could do about this. The Minister may have alluded to the fact that there are three possible solutions. Most of us, I think, would like the EU to amend current legislation to enable auto-enrolment into GPPs. It seems perverse, given that it was not the original intention of the Commission or of the European Union to forbid workers from being enrolled into good workplace personal pensions, that we have this extraordinary situation. This has nothing to do with being pro or anti-European. I think that many of us on both sides of the Committee, and from all parties, would like to think it possible, in a well-functioning Europe, where there have been some unintended consequences of legislation, that we have  good enough relations with our European partners to go there, explain the situation and obtain for the UK some form of derogation.

I cannot believe that we do not have enough friends or influence within Europe to achieve that sort of result. I press the Minister on this point, and would like to hear what the Government intend to do. Neither of the other solutions put forward—involving master trusts or streamlined joining with a focus on achieving good participation levels—is perfect. Both have been attacked or criticised as potential solutions to this particular problem by major players within the industry. If the Minister gets up and wrings his hands and says that good as our relations are with our European partners, it will not be possible to amend the distance marketing directive and the unfair commercial practices directive before 2012, we need to hear now, or certainly on Report, his preferred means of ensuring that we do not undermine and level down this very significant and much-appreciated part of the current pensions landscape.

There are a diversity of views within the industry and among older people’s groups and consumer groups as to whether the Minister should go down the master trust route or the streamlined joining route. Of all the briefs I have read, there seemed to be quite convincing arguments about streamlined joining, provided the participation levels are high. It is for the Minister, however, to tell the Committee how he intends to sort out this particular problem and I look forward to hearing what he has to say in response.

Danny Alexander (Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Work & Pensions; Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch & Strathspey, Liberal Democrat)

Before I address this amendment, I would like to say to the Committee that if they wish to refer to my constituency using the word Inverness, I shall not be offended. I realize it is a tongue twister, much though I am grateful to the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire for his repeated efforts.

This amendment raises an important issue. It is carefully constructed to draw attention to a genuine difficulty which the Minister has been working hard to try to resolve. There are a number of conflicting pressures. One of the things this amendment would do—though the second part of it, by allowing the Department to withdraw the terms with which it is applicable, seeks to limit this—is nonetheless to dilute the principle of automatic enrolment. I accept that this is one way this issue could be addressed but it would not be my preference because the principle of automatic enrolment seems to be a central feature of this Bill. Ideally one would wish for the principle of automatic enrolment to be applied to the WPPs or the GPPs—I am not sure which is the best term to use.

Andrew Selous (Shadow Minister, Work & Pensions; South West Bedfordshire, Conservative)

I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman will be coming on to this later in his remarks, but I wonder if he could address the specific issue of levelling down for the many people who have good levels of contributions. The average level of contribution is 6 per cent. in GPP schemes. That is double what personal accounts are proposing.

Danny Alexander (Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Work & Pensions; Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch & Strathspey, Liberal Democrat)

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point that I was about to come to. The first point is to maintain the principle of automatic  enrolment. The second is to not undermine the many millions of people—the hon. Gentleman gave the correct statistics—who benefit from high quality workplace personal pensions. If this Bill was to undermine that provision or to make businesses think that this was not an appropriate way for them to deliver pensions for their staff in future that would be seriously damaging. The Minister is caught between those two imperatives.

The way out of this—I am grateful to hear this from the Conservative Benches—has surely to be the European solution. The Minister has said in other forms, and he may say again today, that four years is not sufficient time to negotiate appropriate changes in the European directives. A Government clear in their commitment to the European Union and seeking to exercise influence by turning up to the relevant meetings on time and making its case, and who work closely with their European partners, surely should be able to negotiate such a change on the basis that this is an unintended consequence of European legislation which was designed for other purposes.

The two directives were not designed to prevent the sort of sensible pensions reform that has been proposed in this bill, but were introduced for good reasons relating to a range of other areas in the consumer sector. I know the Minister himself has raised this matter at European level, with the Commission and elsewhere. I do not know to what extent he has encouraged it to be raised at an even higher level, potentially even by the Prime Minister at European Councils. But an appropriate degree of influence and effort should be applied at the European level to get what is, technically, a complicated change, but nonetheless one which—though in the gamut of European legislation is relatively insignificant—has great importance for the people we are talking about in the context of this amendment.

I would like to hear more from the Minister about the steps being taken at a European level to win on this issue. It is also the case that the more streamlined processes that are being proposed in the reform treaty would help this sort of thing.

Nigel Waterson (Shadow Minister, Work & Pensions; Eastbourne, Conservative)

Given his own party’s enthusiasm for Europe, and in particular for denying the British people a referendum on the Lisbon treaty, is he not a little disappointed that our European partners seem so unwilling to move quickly on what is, in any view, an unintended consequence of one or two European directives?

Danny Alexander (Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Work & Pensions; Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch & Strathspey, Liberal Democrat)

I am not clear yet whether discussions have got that far, since I have not heard more from the Minister about the details of the negotiations he has had. It does not seem at all that this is something that has been blocked by our European partners: it seems to me that the sense of the scale of the task within the UK Government has led to an attitude of despair. They are saying that this is something we simply cannot do in time, and therefore we are going to have some discussions but not necessarily take it much further.

What I am arguing for is that, if necessary, it should be escalated up the diplomatic chain, so that more pressure can be applied. The European Commission—and this may surprise some hon. Members—can move quickly when it is under pressure to do so. I suspect that there are many other countries in the European Union that are caught in very similar situations to us in terms of the demographic change and the lack of pension provision and so on. They are not necessarily proposing the same measures, but we might actually see that the changes we are seeking to make would assist them too.

I do not, therefore, accept that this is something that has been blocked at a European level. I do not know, for example, whether the Minister has had conversations with people in the European Parliament, who deal with these matters in their committees, to see if there is a route through that body that could help us with this problem. As the hon. Gentleman has made absolutely clear, there are potentially millions of people who will be affected if we do not get this one right. I hope that the Minister will not give up on the European solution, and I would be grateful if, in answer to this debate, he elucidated in some detail the various steps he has taken to try to reach agreement at that level. That seems to be the best way to solve the problem which this amendment has rightly highlighted.

Mike O'Brien (Minister of State (Pension Reform), Department for Work and Pensions; North Warwickshire, Labour)

Clause 3 is very important—one of the most significant in the Bill—and deals with automatic enrolment and the duty on employers. Subsection (5) creates an exemption for employers using workplace personal pensions from the duty of automatic enrolment. We are not currently satisfied that under the distance marketing directive, and the unfair commercial practices directive, automatic enrolment is possible into a personal pension which is commercially based. It is possible in relation to a trust-based scheme and it is possible in relation to the scheme we are setting up, personal accounts, which is going to be trust-based.

However, in relation to contract-based schemes, there is a serious question about whether or not we can be satisfied that it is possible to enrol on that basis. I am choosing my words with care. I am not saying that it is not possible to do it. Let me again elucidate carefully what we have done in relation to the European Union. I am conscious that others will read what we say here and if hon. Members wish a fuller discussion it may be better that it take place through the usual channels.

The advice we got was that we needed to approach this with great care. In particular, we did not want insurance companies to take undue risks in relation to the contracts that they entered into. We therefore put the subsection into the clause to enable us to create an exemption. The principle of automatic enrolment is enormously important. Our preference is that employers should be able to automatically enrol into both trust- and contract-based schemes, basically insurance company pension schemes. Our concern about the two directives means that at this point we cannot give the insurance industry the reassurance that it would like, and which we would like to give.

We are looking at the directives with great care. One of the directives is due for reconsideration in—I think—2011. However, reconsideration involves consultation in  a number of European countries, agreement on any changes and then implementation. That would probably take us beyond 2012. That is why we want the provision here, to see if we wish to go down the route of an exemption for the insurance-based schemes.

WPPs are an enormously important, and a growing, part of the pensions market. As the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire indicated, they account for around 47 per cent. of current private pension membership. That represents around 3.3 million employees, involving total contributions worth around £6.7 billion each year. There are 2.1 million members of WPPs with an employer contribution in excess of 3 per cent. While the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire is right in relation to a 6 per cent. average, some employer contributions are actually less than 3 per cent, and some of them are considerably more than that. WPPs vary considerably in quality, but they will all be obliged to comply with the 3 per cent. minimum employer contribution.

The discussions that we have had more recently with Europe are a little more optimistic than our earlier indications. I am always cautious in approaching institutions to ask a question because the answer may be broader than the question asked. Therefore, we want to have some view of the likely answer if we are to pursue, with any degree of pressure, the question suggested by the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire. In other words, are we able to go ahead with insurance company contract-based signing up and automatic enrolment?

We wish to make further approaches and see if we can find a way through to the conclusion that we all seek. In the meantime I am engaged in some detailed and helpful discussions with the ABI to see if we can reach an agreement with regard to an exemption. The discussions are going well and I am hopeful that we will be able to reach an agreement, although we may not be able to do so. However, I can give no undertaking in relation to that. We need to talk not just to the ABI but to other stakeholders. When we heard evidence last week, it was clear that a number of witnesses had serious concerns about breaching the principle of automatic enrolment. I am very conscious of the extent to which those people have concerns. We need to take those concerns into account in the negotiations that we are having with the ABI.

We need the exemption to enable us to have the opportunity to complete negotiations with the ABI—to see if it is possible to create an exemption. The exemption would only be necessary if we could not automatically enrol into contract-based schemes. We will continue to look at the issue with the European Union—again, I am being careful with my words as far our discussions are concerned. In due course, we may take a view that it is best to wait until 2011 and have the discussions then, or it may be that we can move forward and have some discussions in the coming weeks. I will attempt to keep the Opposition spokesmen informed, through the usual channels, of the extent of those discussions, as and when they take place. That is essentially where we are.

Danny Alexander (Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Work & Pensions; Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch & Strathspey, Liberal Democrat)

Before the Minister leaves the European point—I appreciate the care with which he is choosing his words—the Liberal Democrats would be  happy to discuss the involvement of MEPs in the different groups to try to advance a solution more quickly, should it prove helpful to go through the European Parliament.

Mike O'Brien (Minister of State (Pension Reform), Department for Work and Pensions; North Warwickshire, Labour)

I am grateful for his offer, but we are dealing with a legal issue rather than a case of political negotiation or pressure and we need to look at it in that context. That is not the primary issue, which is what the directive obliges us to do, and whether we are able to do certain things within those terms. It is, essentially, a legal issue.

Andrew Selous (Shadow Minister, Work & Pensions; South West Bedfordshire, Conservative)

Like the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey, I am grateful for the Minister’s full response on the matter, because the issue is important. The Minister said a number of times that the directives are not due to be reconsidered until 2011. That is a full three years away. Many of us in the Committee are surprised that there does not seem to be a mechanism for pushing something up the agenda if it is a significant issue to many millions of people in this country. Is he able to say anything further to the Committee about how we could perhaps bring forward the reconsideration of such matters?

Mike O'Brien (Minister of State (Pension Reform), Department for Work and Pensions; North Warwickshire, Labour)

We would only want to do that if our current discussions led us to a conclusion that we did not want. Let us take this step by step. Let us investigate the legal issue and whether or not it is possible to get some comfort from our discussions with the Commission. If we can, it may well be that we do not need to do what he suggests.

In any event, is it possible to raise things before 2011? Yes, it is. It is obviously much more difficult, because we have to engage all the members of the EU, to get their agreement and then to push it up the agenda. That of itself takes significant amounts of time, and we would probably run into 2011 in any event. My concern now is that we have insurance companies out there that want to know where they stand. They do not want to know where they stand in 2010, 2012 or 2015; they want to know now. They want to know during the course of the next few months and years. Are they able to expand their business significantly? I want to give them as much reassurance as I reasonably can. Our aim is to maintain good quality pension provision. Often that is likely to be insurance-based as well as trust-based. We want to ensure that the issue of levelling down is not presented to employers. It is an issue here.

If an employer were making a contribution in excess of 6 per cent. to a good-quality, contract-based pension scheme and, as a result of the way in which these particular clauses operate, was obliged to change significantly the way in which his pensions were dealt with, he might well decide to level down. My objective, therefore, is to see whether we can minimise, in so far as we reasonably can, the prospect of levelling down.

The aim is to see whether we can keep things pretty much as they are for cases where there is a good-quality  pension scheme with an employer contribution above about 6 per cent., an issue which we will come to in a few minutes. That is my aim, although I do not know whether we will be able to do it. We have some time during the course of this year to explore these issues and to see what the best approach is, and to discuss an exemption, if necessary, with the ABI and other stakeholders. That is the approach the Government are taking. I know it has broad support among stakeholders, although as we have heard during the course of evidence-giving, many of them are concerned that we should minimise any breach of automatic enrolment, whereas the members of the ABI want to minimise any disruption to their market. In both cases, the principle position of the stakeholders is entirely understandable and justifiable.

The hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire also asked about master trusts and streamlined joining. Some insurance companies already offer master trust-based pension schemes, and would therefore be in a position to expand those schemes. Those who offer those types of schemes also offer contract-based joining, which they tend on balance to prefer. Some of the other insurance companies currently only operate contract-based schemes. They have concerns about the nature of a switch to master trusts. Some of them take the view that this would produce disruption for employers. Some of the other stakeholders, such as the National Association of Pension Funds, have done some work on this and think it would not produce that level of disruption. There is still some discussion going on with the ABI and others to try to ascertain what the precise level of disruption would be if some of the contract-based pension funds were converted to trust-based pension funds.

The general idea of a master trust scheme is that the trust is created within the insurance company, not with the employer. That enables automatic enrolment into the schemes under that trust, creating minimal disruption for the employer, and therefore there would not be the circumstances in which the employer would be likely to level down. The aim is to see whether some of the insurance companies would wish to move to that type of master trust scheme. If they take the view—which some have—that they do not wish or do not feel able to move to master trusts, then they are presented with a difficulty if there is no exemption, because they would either have to convert to master trusts or some of them would lose some of their market. That does concern me greatly and that is why we are in the business of negotiating it very seriously with the ABI and others.

Let us see how those discussions go on. I think I have outlined the various ways in which we are trying to clarify the issues, to pursue options if we do not get the answers we want, and to see whether there are other ways in which the insurance companies could proceed. We would need to be provided with a reassurance that we would get sufficient numbers of people engaging in pension provision to say that we could exempt them from automatic enrolment. The insurance companies need to identify employers with whom they have good relationships and be able to find opportunities with those employers to sell good-quality pension schemes to the employees. The employees would then need to sign up in numbers in excess of those we would have got if there had been automatic enrolment.

We do not want a situation in which we do not apply automatic enrolment—in which we have, in other words, an exemption—and as a result do not get sign-up to pension schemes. We need to get that sign-up. The exemptions themselves could create some difficulties for insurance companies, because they will then want to engage only with employers from whom they know they are likely to get a certain level of sign-up. If they cannot get that sign-up, they may well decide they do not want to continue to engage with particular employers. There would however be opportunities for them to sell their product on a broader basis after 2012, because automatic enrolment will mean for those insurance-based companies that employers will be in the market looking for provision. If there were an exemption, they may well find a much bigger market in which to sell their products. In business terms, both insurance-based schemes and trust-based schemes will probably benefit quite significantly from providing pensions after 2012, because the market will be significantly expanded.

Andrew Selous (Shadow Minister, Work & Pensions; South West Bedfordshire, Conservative)

I am very grateful to the Minister for his very full response to this section of the debate. The ABI has provided a briefing in which it estimates that going down a master trust route would have administrative costs of about £350 million and might lead to a churning of policies between the providers and a consequent re-broking cost to the industry of around £1 billion, and that a switching in workplace pension provision would actually damage the policies themselves, causing a loss of “embedded value” of around £4 billion to £5 billion. What is the Minister’s and the Department’s estimate as to the accuracy of those estimated costs?

Mike O'Brien (Minister of State (Pension Reform), Department for Work and Pensions; North Warwickshire, Labour)

We would want the ABI to provide some detailed justification of some of those estimates. It is the case that some of the insurance companies which have master trust schemes do not envisage these sorts of costs applying in relation to the master trust schemes, because they simply would not. The question is what the alternative is for the insurance companies. If they are able—as some of them are—to expand their master trust schemes, then obviously the cost for those insurance companies will not be so significant. If they have to do a lot of conversion, I would want to see the actual costs of converting to master trusts, because there is quite a lot of disagreement in the pensions industry as a whole. I include here stakeholders such as the NAPF, who have very different views. I think the ABI’s response to the NAPF would be, “they would say that, wouldn’t they? They are, in a sense, competitors. They are providing trust-based schemes, we are providing contract-based schemes”. Before accepting any of those figures we would want to see a greater degree of justification from the ABI.

I have heard the arguments about the costs. I am not convinced about the size of these costs. I have not seen all of the detailed figures with which the ABI justify its global sums. The figures need a lot more justification than they have at the moment if they are to be presented as reliable. That being said, I do not doubt that there is a significant issue here. The ABI has a serious point and it is one on which, if I am able to accommodate it, I will. I am satisfied that the  discussions we have had with it so far have been serious and I hope it will lead to an exemption, which we could use should that be necessary.

I am not as pessimistic about the approaches we might make to the Commission as I was some months ago. Our advice now is that the issues may well be manageable but, again, I am cautious about what I want to say. At this point I am happy to have private discussions with the hon. Gentleman if that would be helpful.

Andrew Selous (Shadow Minister, Work & Pensions; South West Bedfordshire, Conservative)

We have had a full and useful debate in this section of our deliberations. These are important issues because of the numbers of employees involved in these group personal pension schemes. There is nothing much more that I can add but I am grateful to the Minister for the full way in which he has responded to the debate.

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Danny Alexander (Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Work & Pensions; Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch & Strathspey, Liberal Democrat)

I beg to move amendment No. 79, in clause 3, page 2, line 36, at end add—

‘(8) The Secretary of State shall publish an annual report on the impact of means-tested benefits on automatically enrolled members of the scheme established under section 50’.

Nicholas Winterton (Macclesfield, Conservative)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments:

No. 16, in clause 8, page 5, line 7, at end add—

‘(3) The information so given must include whether the jobholder is likely to benefit by reason of being auto-enrolled.

(4) For the purposes of this section ‘benefit’ shall be defined as the jobholder recovering all contributions to the scheme as well as an additional return the extent of which the Secretary of State shall by regulation define.’.

No. 87, in clause 12, page 6, line 24, at end add—

‘(5) The Secretary of State shall report annually on the effect of changes to the qualifying earnings on the impact of means-tested benefits on members of the scheme establised under section 50.’.

No. 104, in clause 58, page 27, line 21, at end insert—

‘(c) to consider the impact of means-tested benefits on members of the scheme established under section 50, and report these findings on an annual basis.’.

New clause 2—Projections of numbers of those on means-tested benefits

New clause 6—Trivial commutation limit

Danny Alexander (Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Work & Pensions; Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch & Strathspey, Liberal Democrat)

I would like to say something about amendment No. 79 and about new clause 6, for which I would be interested to hear the Minister’s specific responses.

As I said in relation to amendment No. 78, the debate about the extent to which it pays people to save in personal accounts is one of the critical issues that has been drawn attention to by a wide number of stakeholders in the course of the preparation of this Bill. Members on both sides of the House at Second Reading were concerned that, while it is clearly the case that the personal accounts will be beneficial to a large number of people within the target group and that the wider benefits of the personal accounts scheme and the  ideas behind it such as automatic enrolment were clear to see, there are critical issues as to whether it will pay certain individuals to save.

One of the answers to that relates to the way information and/or advice is provided. We will come back to the question of information and advice at a later stage in the Bill so I do not wish to dwell on that point now. We believe this matter is very important in answering the question.

Amendment 79 is a modest proposal that I hope the Minister will be minded to accept, given the concerns that have been expressed on all sides of the House. At the very least the Secretary of State should annually provide to Parliament a report on the impact of means-tested benefits on automatically enrolled members of the personal accounts scheme. That would enable Parliament to have on a regular basis the information that it needs to understand whether the concerns raised, which I will go on to, have had the impact that some expected or whether, as the Minister said, the groups concerned were small or the rules—such as with his example of the trivial commutation limits for those aged over 50—have had the effect that he was expecting.

The amendment would enable Parliament to keep a close eye on the situation. As that would be through a report provided by the Secretary of State, the Secretary of State would be able to provide his interpretation and guidance on what he thinks that the information contained therein means. None the less, an issue raised on all sides of the House but about which there is a great deal of uncertainty could be discussed regularly. There is clearly some uncertainty about the issue. Everyone in the House agrees that there are some people for whom it may in the end not pay to save in personal accounts, because of the impact of means-tested benefits on their income in retirement.

In addition to the group of people aged over 50 that we discussed, there are other groups. In that context, I wish to refer to those people who receive other means-tested benefits, in addition to pension credit. The debate has focused on pension credit, because pension credit is the means-tested benefit that pensioners receive, and will continue to receive in large numbers until 2050. Independent estimates, by the Pensions Policy Institute, for example, suggest that two in every five pensioners will be in receipt of pension credit in some respects in 2050; the Government estimate would suggest more like one in three. In either case, that is a significant proportion of pensioners.

However, many pensioners will receive other benefits. One group of concern is those renting in retirement. The housing benefit taper is particularly steep, especially when linked in with the council tax benefit taper—who knows whether the council tax will still exist in 2050, although that is another debate? None the less, those taper rates are particularly steep and would therefore have a dramatic effect on the degree to which pension income would be generated—small for someone who has saved a pot of just over the trivial commutation limits, as described by the Minister. A lot of that  income would, in effect, be used to substitute for means-tested benefits. Would those people even be getting back what they paid in?

I noticed a sensible amendment, proposed by the Conservatives, that—in talking about having a more detailed assessment and a measure of what a benefit means—puts forward the idea that a benefit means getting back what you paid in and a bit more. I am sure that a Conservative Front Bencher will go on to explain more what they meant. However, having in the Bill some measure of what benefiting from personal accounts means seems to be a sensible idea.

While the scale of the problem is hard to estimate, none the less the Pensions Policy Institute has highlighted some groups for which it thinks there is a high risk of personal accounts being unsuitable, such as:

“Single people who are likely to rent in retirement and who have no additional savings. These people are likely to qualify for less means-tested Housing Benefit as a consequence of saving in a Personal Account.”

It also refers to

“single people in their forties and fifties...who are self-employed.”

There are also medium-risk groups that have been highlighted by that organisation.

It would be useful if the Minister’s response could give us any information that he has about the extent to which that might be a problem, and the numbers of people involved in particular groups. I accept what he no doubt will say, that it is often hard for any individual to predict what their circumstances will be in retirement, particularly at an early age. Of course that is the case. None the less, we do not want the Bill to get us into a situation where some people can fairly claim that they were strongly encouraged to enrol automatically in a personal account, only to reach the time of retirement to discover that the financial benefits that they receive are not what they were given to expect. We certainly do not want to get into a position where those people are able to make a claim against the Government on that basis. That is why having a proper understanding of the numbers of people and the range of groups that might be affected, and how the Minister wishes to see those groups addressed, would be beneficial. The problem does not affect the many millions of people for whom the scheme is clearly beneficial but if it does affect hundreds of thousands of people then it is very serious; the hon. Member for Eastbourne said that there might be even more than hundreds of thousands. Unless the issue is got right there will be a significant gap in the Bill in its application to the target audience for which it is hoped that the benefits will accrue.

New clause 6, which relates to the trivial commutation limit, is designed to probe the Minister’s reaction to a particular proposal brought forward as a way of helping to solve the problem. That proposal is to increase the trivial commutation limit. The Minister quite rightly described how the limit can benefit people with small pots. It has been suggested that an increase in the limit would substantially increase the number of people, in the category under debate, who are able to benefit—those who might otherwise be at risk of not benefiting to a great or any extent from their personal account saving. That would be done by enabling a larger pension pot to be accumulated and then converted in full into a cash  lump sum. For example, research by the PPI showed that an increase in the trivial commutation limit from £15,000 to £30,000, with a corresponding increase in the capital limit, could increase the proportion of retirees who would be able to trivially commute their pension pots from 13 per cent. to 22 per cent. Potentially, that could substantially improve the ability of some people at least to get returns from their savings.

I am sure that the Minister in his response will stress the importance of affordability and I am therefore interested to know what estimates he has made of the costs of the proposal and of the number of people who would benefit, particularly those who are at risk of losing out because of the interaction with the means-tested system. For us, the problem lies with the extent of the means-tested system. That is why we put forward proposals in the previous Pensions Bill to move towards a citizens pension which would ensure a basic state pension at a level sufficient to ensure that everyone had a firm foundation on which their private saving could be built. That is not something that we are debating—we are looking at whether there are any technical solutions that can be brought forward to help to address the problem. The increase in the trivial commutation limit is one such technical solution, which may or may not be of assistance.

I would be grateful to hear that the Minister is not under any illusions as to the seriousness of the problem and that it is something he is seeking to address. Otherwise there will be doubts in some people’s minds as to whether saving is worth their while, and that could undermine the extent to which the sensible proposal in the Bill can be successful in the long run. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

Nigel Waterson (Shadow Minister, Work & Pensions; Eastbourne, Conservative)

I rise to make my first substantial contribution to the debate. It is a pleasure, Sir Nicholas, to be serving under your liberal chairmanship. It was interesting to have a re-run of the citizens pension concept from the Liberal Democrat spokesman. That was perhaps not unreasonable given that his constituency includes Loch Ness—the citizen’s pension is about as likely to make an appearance as the Loch Ness monster.

Danny Alexander (Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Work & Pensions; Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch & Strathspey, Liberal Democrat)

I think the hon. Gentleman is making the point that he does not agree with a citizen’s pension policy, but that is not to say that it would not have the outcome I seek in the context of this amendment. As for the Loch Ness monster, I hope he is not doubting the importance of that economic asset to my constituents.

Nicholas Winterton (Macclesfield, Conservative)

Order. I think that is as far as we should take the Loch Ness monster.

Nigel Waterson (Shadow Minister, Work & Pensions; Eastbourne, Conservative)

Mike O'Brien (Minister of State (Pension Reform), Department for Work and Pensions; North Warwickshire, Labour)

Danny Alexander (Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Work & Pensions; Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch & Strathspey, Liberal Democrat)

I will endeavour to complete my remarks before 1 o’clock, but if I need 30 seconds when we return then I hope I may avail myself of that. I am grateful for the Minister’s response. On the trivial commutation point, I entirely accept what he said about that issue. Certainly, if a new group is to be set up to look at these issues in more detail, it is entirely appropriate the issue of trivial commutation should be referred to that group.

I am pleased that we have moved on from the tone of debate on Second Reading, when, frankly, there was some entrenchment on both sides. The way in which the Minister has expressed his points, as well as the substantial suggestion he has brought forward in response to the idea from Age Concern, suggest that there is a new desire, in looking at this issue, to evaluate it properly, to examine the interaction with means-tested benefits, and to look at the level of predictability. The exercise he is proposing— guided, I hope, by Age Concern and some of the independent people who can become involved in this—is one that we on these Benches would welcome, and with which we wish to co-operate.

The Committee he is setting up will produce a report. Clearly, some of these amendments relate to reports to Parliament which Parliament can then debate. While I would be happy to withdraw these amendments, I hope that this report will not be kicked into the long grass, and that Parliament will be able to debate it so that Members in all parts of the House have a chance to express their opinions of what is said. With that, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.