I beg to move Amendment 262, in Clause 20, page 21, line 12, leave out “£1,000” and insert “£2,000”.

This amendment changes the value of small pot consolidation from £1,000 to £2,000.

The purpose of this amendment is to accelerate the consolidation of small, dormant pension pots and to enable more pots to be included. In other words, the amendment would support the Government’s intention to simplify retirement savings by reducing the number of scattered small pots and helping members to keep track of their savings and to avoid losing their pensions altogether. It would serve to improve the efficiency of providers, which in turn could reduce costs for savers.

Since tabling this amendment, we have continued to receive feedback from industry, some supporting an increased limit and some preferring to leave it at £1,000. Some industry representatives are also concerned that the way consolidation could take place might inadvertently disadvantage their business model, or favour larger providers over smaller ones. In the time available, it has been hard for us to find consensus. I suspect, from the way the Minister is nodding, that he has had similar applications from across the industry and has received very contrasting views. Bearing that in mind, we cast this as a probing amendment.

We would be grateful if the Minister shared his thinking on pot size, and why he arrived at a figure of £1,000 rather than £500, £2,000 or any other amount. He will be aware that we have tabled a separate amendment that would introduce a regular three-yearly review of whatever amount is agreed, so that the measure can keep pace with inflation and industry needs.

Broadly, we welcome Clause 20, which builds on important work that was started under the previous Government to address the issue of small, dormant pension pots. This is a critical step forward to consolidate small pots, which can otherwise be costly and inefficient both for pension schemes and, importantly, for their members. However, we have some concerns about certain aspects of the measure that require further scrutiny.

Notably, the Bill gives the Secretary of State the power to change the monetary value that defines a small pot at a later date. Although that is a logical measure that will probably need to be exercised as the small pots regime becomes more established, there is a risk that drastic changes to the minimum pot size could significantly alter the defined-contribution market in unintended ways. In particular, the potential market impact on schemes serving members with lower average account balances needs to be carefully considered. Automatically consolidating larger pots could reshape the market landscape, affecting members and schemes differently across the spectrum. Pensions UK has suggested that any future increases in the monetary value of the definition of a small pot should be subject to robust consultation with industry stakeholders, alongside an independent market impact assessment, to understand fully the ramifications of such changes.

The Liberal Democrat point is extremely important. I hope that the Minister will verify how the small pot size was set at £1,000. The Amendment seeks to increase that to £2,000, but why not £5,000 or lower it to £500? It is very difficult.

The other problem with the clause is that a small pot defined as inactive could be inactively invested—for example, sitting in an index fund for 10 years without anybody worrying about it—and have crept up or down in value. It could be £1,005 one day and £995 the next. Does that change it from being an okay pot to a small pot, and therefore due for consolidation? This is a very difficult measure. Inevitably, it comes to the point of where it is defined. Similarly, will the amount be indexed against inflation, or against the stock market indices? How will the Secretary of State decide to increase it?

There are so many questions about this. My gut feeling is that £1,000 is too small, but equally that it is incredibly difficult to determine what the right size is. I look forward to the Minister extensively discussing with the Committee exactly how he came to £1,000 and not £1,001, £999 or indeed any other number.

There is possibly cross-party consensus that there is no perfect answer to this problem, but there are lots of wrong answers. If the value had been set at £100,000 or at £1, those would have been very wrong answers. I applaud the way the Liberal Democrats have approached this, by looking at the responses they have received and being willing to flex on the basis of them. I hope the Minister has approached the numbers in the same way.

This Amendment is a test of change. It is asking, “Does this work? Does this make a difference?” Whatever value the Government chooses to set the limit at, we will see if it works. At that stage, the Government can assess whether it was the right level or not. This comes back to the point that I made during the evidence sessions about monitoring and evaluation of whether this has worked and how the Government will measure whether it has worked as intended. At what stage will the Government look at that?

At what stage after implementation will the Government make a call about whether the measure has achieved their aims, or whether the number needs to be flexed to meet the aims not just of the Government, but of savers, active and inactive, in their pensions, who would quite like to get a decent return when they hit pension age but perhaps do not have the capacity, the ability, or the time to be involved in actually making the decisions about moving and consolidating the pots.

It would be helpful if the Minister gave us some clarity about what monitoring and evaluation will look like, and about why £1,000 was chosen, so that we can understand the rationale. As I said, there is probably wide agreement that there are quite a few wrong answers but no perfect answer, and this is possibly the best that we are going to get at this moment.

The hon. Lady is not only telling me I am going to be fired, but then clearly angling for the job by again giving the speech I was going to give. I agree that there is broad consensus across the room that there is no perfect answer, but there is a balance of risks. We are attempting to introduce a large change to the pension system that will affect millions of people, and we need to do that in a steady and gradual way—yes, with the intention of considering going further in the future, but not in a rushed way.

Let me talk through a few of the issues and points that were raised. As I am sure those proposing the Amendment know, our view is that we should stick with the £1,000 limit at this point and then come back to consider future increases once the system has been put in place. We want all hon. Members to have it in their heads that the implementation of this aspect of the Bill is on a slightly slower timeline than some of the other bits we have discussed—for example, because we need the value for money regime to be in place before we move to the small pots part of the picture.

Directly on the question of where the £1,000 limit came from, it came from extensive engagement and formal consultation with industry stakeholders over quite a large number of years. There is no academic answer to why it is £1,000 and not £900 or £1,100, but it does strike a balance between the pressures on a competitive industry and the level of administrative hassle, and the number of people who will be affected. We need to build a system that can manage the flows.

To give Members some idea of quantity, the evidence gathered from pension schemes last year showed that the £1,000 threshold would bring approximately 13 million pots into scope. I appreciate the logic behind calling for a higher threshold, but this one would mean a significant 13 million pots. The hon. Member for Wyre Forest is looking aghast at that number. I am just providing it as a bit of context. For further context, it already represents more than half of all deferred small pots, so it is not that we are trying to affect hardly any to start with; it is a significant number. That is in 2024 terms; the picture will look different in 2030 or so when the measure comes in, but that helps Members to have a sense of it.

On how to change the threshold, I can absolutely provide the reassurance that was asked for: that will be done in a public-facing way. An affirmative resolution is always required to change it. Unlike some other aspects of the Bill, where the first regulations are subject to the affirmative procedure but later changes can be made through the negative procedure, any change to the pot size requirement will always require the affirmative procedure, for exactly the reasons that have been discussed, which are that this would be a material change that affected the industry and individuals as they go through. Certainly, we would consult on that in the future.

For those reasons, I am glad that this is a probing amendment. I hope I have been probed, and we would like the Clause to stand part.

On that point, perhaps I am reading the Clause completely wrongly, but it says:

“Small pots regulations…are subject to the affirmative procedure if they…are the first such regulations…otherwise, are subject to the negative procedure.”

I am confused.

That is for all regulations except for the setting of the threshold number.

I thank the Minister for his response—

To being probed.

Yes, it sounds rather unpleasant. We will think more about this subject, and I am sure we will discuss further, but I thank him for the clarification. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

I beg to move Amendment 259, Clause 20, page 21, line 23, leave out from “procedure” to end of line 29

This amendment would make all regulations on consolidation of small dormant pots in DC schemes to the affirmative procedure all times they were made rather than just after first use.

The hon. Member for Aberdeen North asked an interesting question about the application of the affirmative procedure to regulations on the pot size. Our amendment seeks to address the use of the affirmative procedure in the wider legislation that goes with this.

As we continue to table amendments urging extra parliamentary scrutiny, I feel myself becoming slightly depressed at the prospect of having to see too much of the Minister, even though he is undoubtedly a lovely chap, in Delegated legislation Committees as we consider every single change. It is important though, because at the end of the day Parliament needs to scrutinise what is going on, so it is a good thing that the size of the pot is subject to the affirmative procedure.

It is okay, but not ideal that for anything that could be to do with the wider legislation, the negative procedure applies. Members having to look for a very material change going through in a written ministerial statement or whatever and then raise it is not necessarily such a good thing, given that this is fixing 13 million of these pots. That is an awful lot of them. If we increased the threshold to £2,000, would that number be 26 million? A lot of people that could be affected by this.

This was largely a probing amendment to see what the Minister has to say. We are unlikely to divide the Committee on it. None the less, I am very interested to hear what the Minister has to say about the affirmative procedure.

I understand why the hon. Member tabled the Amendment. I think amendments like this one should be tabled in most Bill Committees by all Oppositions, as they have been over the years.

Let me make one general point and one specific point about the Bill. The general point is that there is always a trade-off between maximum scrutiny of every single part of any change that comes through secondary legislation and the risk of putting undue pressure on parliamentary time for what will be quite minor changes. In the case of the Bill, the pot size requirement is crucial. Lots of what the rest of the regulations deal with will, in fact, be very practical and detailed.

I am not sure that the Committee’s concern that we will be spending our lives together would be allayed by having our time clogged up by all of that detail coming through whenever anything is amended, but I understand the good, democratic reasons why the hon. Gentleman tabled the amendment. I hope that he accepts that as reassurance.

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

The Clause, as we have just discussed, will ensure that the Government have the power to introduce regulations to secure the consolidation of eligible small pots into an authorised consolidator scheme. The Bill enables us to address the growing problem of pension fragmentation, where individuals accumulate multiple small pension pots as they move between jobs. Fragmentation can lead to inefficiencies, higher costs for providers and savers, and poor retirement outcomes.

As we have just discussed, the clause creates the eligibility conditions for small pots to be consolidated, including the £1,000 limit. The pot must be classed as dormant, which means that contributions have not been paid into it for at least 12 months, so the individual is not actively saving into the scheme. In addition, there is a requirement that the individual has not, subject to any prescribed exceptions, actively expressed how the pension pot is to be invested. The prescribed exceptions are in part to ensure that the scope specifically targets those who are unengaged savers in default funds, but this will enable us to broaden the scope to include individuals such as those in sharia-compliant funds, who would otherwise be excluded from the automatic consolidation process.

We estimate that these eligibility criteria will bring into scope 13 million dormant pots. This multiple default consolidator approach will support improved retirement outcomes for savers, not least by lowering the charges that they pay on those pots over time, as well as reduce the administrative hassle for pension providers, alongside supporting our vision for a pensions market with fewer, larger schemes that provide greater value. Our impact assessment demonstrates that this solution is estimated to generate greater overall net benefits over the period than other options, including pot follows member.

I have a question on the definition of “dormant”. The Clause states that a pension pot is “dormant” if no contributions have been made for 12 months and if

“the individual has, subject to any prescribed exceptions, taken no step to confirm or alter the way in which the pension pot is invested.”

I am concerned that that definition is too wide.

If somebody has just said, “How much is in my pot?” and is confirming what is invested in it, are they considered to be somebody who is actively involved in their pot and who may not want consolidation? There is obviously a requirement to tell people anyway that it is going to be consolidated. What if they were actively involved, but only to the level that they checked the numbers?

For example, I have a small pension pot. I have tried to amalgamate it with another one, but it did not work because I have changed my name. I would love for it to be amalgamated; I cannot work out how to do it, but I have engaged with that pension pot in recent times and therefore it may not be considered a dormant pot.

Can the Minister give us some clarity or promise future clarity about what “dormant” means? If there has been a rough engagement with it, is that dormant? If people are very keen on their pension pot and have spent a lot of time saying, “Actually, it should be invested like this,” that is definitely not dormant, no matter how small it is. A lot of people will have had only a passing interest and would be delighted for it to be consolidated.

The hon. Lady’s last point is basically the right one. The policy objective is that where someone is not actively engaging in their pot, that is available for consolidation. The kind of minor administrative engagement—trying to access the website—is not what is envisaged by the Clause. It is to make sure that somebody who has taken active choices about how their pot is invested is not treated as being disengaged when they have done something that is, it turns out, very unusual.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 20 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.