Clause 67
Pensions Bill
6:45 pm
Nigel Waterson (Shadow Minister, Work & Pensions; Eastbourne, Conservative)
Briefly, I have a couple of points to make. The story begins with section 23 of the 2007 Act, which as far as I could make out had a narrow winding-up provision that would arise only if a particular condition was met. That condition, in subsection (3), was that the winding up was necessary
“as a result of the abandonment or modification of any relevant proposals about personal accounts”.
We seem to be moving on, but will the Minister confirm where we are in the present clause? It seems to take winding up to a new place, removing entirely the condition in the 2007 Act, which gave only narrow reasons for the dissolution of the authority by the Secretary of State, and make it much more straightforward.
We have always said, on this Bill and the 2007 Act, that we do not think the authority and its successor body should just morph seamlessly into one another. There are different sets of skills and challenges to starting a scheme and running it later on, and perhaps a different set of personalities would be needed. We would have to review that in due course. It is worth getting clarification from the Minister that that is what the clause is intended to flag up and the basis on which a winding up would be approached.
Will the Minister also confirm what seems to be clear: that the clause will give more flexibility for transferring assets not just to the Secretary of State, which was in the 2007 Act, but to another body, presumably the successor body?