Today has been a small step for mankind and great leap forward for the Bill. It is an historic occasion, which I hope will be recorded in the annals of infamy: the Government’s attempt for only the third time in 100 years to deny the House the right to debate the Bill on Report has crashed to failure. They could not even persuade their own Members to support their position on such an important matter. I trust that the Minister will not require us to go through this charade in our consideration of the rest of the Bill but will acknowledge that he must respect the will of the Committee and the House.

Clause 2 provides that the schemes are regulated by the pensions regulator, although it is hoped that a wider range of providers than the life offices that currently offer pension schemes will offer savings and retirement accounts. The authority in subsection (1) is, of course, the pensions regulator, and subsection (3) permits the regulator to refuse to register a scheme, or to remove a scheme from the register if it does not fulfil the conditions set out in clause 1.