What recent progress has been made in the implementation of personal accounts; and if she will make a statement.

We are currently consulting on secondary legislation and remain on track for implementation from 2012.

Apart from the ever-increasing delay on personal accounts, and the ever-increasing expense, is not the real problem that by forcing people to save in a scheme that will then be means-tested, the Government are effectively setting up the greatest pension mis-selling scandal of the 21st century?

The proposals on which we are consulting and putting into effect were a result of the Turner commission, which began its deliberations in 2004, and the subsequent political cross-party consensus, which I thought we had, has led us to the implementation phase. The hon. Gentleman appears to indicate that the consensus is over. Is that the case?

Perhaps the Minister remembers that Turner said that the scheme should start in 2010. Does she accept that it would be sensible for any new Government to hold a review of personal accounts, especially in the light of the four-year delay in implementation that she recently announced? Can she confirm that the delivery authority will not sign any binding contracts with providers prior to the date of the next general election?

It seems to me, then, that the consensus is ending. I have not announced a four-year delay. What I have done is agree with the considered advice from the Personal Accounts Delivery Authority, which has looked at the sheer scale of the auto-enrolment that will see up to 10 million people saving for the first time into workplace pension schemes, with a guaranteed employer contribution. It would be folly to decide to do that too quickly and collapse the whole scheme. There is no delay; there is just good implementation that will not put at risk the architecture that we have to create from scratch.