This is indeed an important matter and I am grateful to the two hon. Members who have just spoken on it. As I said, the new clause would replicate for personal accounts the effect of provisions in the Welfare Reform and Pensions Act 1999. Pension sharing was a flagship policy of the Government’s first pensions reform and the arrangements in the 1999 Act will apply to the personal accounts scheme, as they do to all other occupational  pension schemes. Given that the Act provides already for pension sharing for occupational schemes, we have not duplicated the provisions in the Bill.

If a couple divorces and the court makes a pension sharing order, the trustees of a scheme will arrange for the former spouse or civil partner to be awarded a pension credit, which will be a share of the member’s pension rights. The trustees will then discharge the pension credit into a pension scheme in the former spouse’s name, who will then become a pension credit member of that scheme.