Stephen Timms: I welcome the Minister’s commitment to legislate in this Parliament. Can he give us some indication of when in the next four years that Bill might be introduced? December 2024 would be rather late to legislate for something to take effect the following year. Will he reassure us that it will be done a little earlier than that?
Stephen Timms: It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. I am very interested by the points raised so far; I am particularly interested—as many others are—in what the Minister has to say in response to the points raised by the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts and my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North about auto-enrolment and where we are going on that. I will speak to...
Stephen Timms: I am grateful to the Minister and to everyone who has taken part in this debate. I welcome a lot of what he has said. On guidance, he told us that the FCA writes to everyone at age 50, but it seems to me that what it should do is say, “Your appointment with Pension Wise is at the following time and place”, taking advantage of that opportunity to increase significantly the likelihood of...
Stephen Timms: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Stephen Timms: I am grateful for the Minister’s perceptiveness in our discussions. May I check that he accepts the point that I made, that there should not be a carve-out for all FCA-registered schemes? FCA-registered schemes have been part of the problem in quite a lot of the scams that have arisen over the past few years.
Stephen Timms: I beg to move amendment 21, in clause 125, page 121, line 11, at end insert— “(e) the results of due diligence undertaken by the trustees or managers regarding the intended transfer or the receiving scheme.” This amendment enables regulations under inserted subsection (6ZA) of section 95 of the Pension Schemes Act 1993 to prescribe conditions about the results of due diligence...
Stephen Timms: I am pleased to be serving under your chairmanship this morning, Mr Stringer. The Work and Pensions Committee, which I chair, discussed amendments 21 to 24, and I am grateful to Labour colleagues on the Committee, the Conservative Vice Chair of the Committee, the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills), and the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) for putting their...
Stephen Timms: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to promote diversity in pension schemes governance; and if she will make a statement.
Stephen Timms: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what discussions she has had with Cabinet colleagues on a joined-up approach by Government and regulators to implementing the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures; and if she will make a statement.
Stephen Timms: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make it her policy for the Money and Pensions Service to reintroduce the Pension Wise usage data reports, showing monthly Pension Wise take up by channel, which were published by her Department up to January 2019.
Stephen Timms: To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, with reference to the Prime Minister's announcement of 22 September 2020 that conferences and exhibitions will not be permitted for at least another six months, what plans he has to provide support to the exhibitions industry during the covid-19 outbreak; and if he will make a statement.
Stephen Timms: It is worth putting on the record that the worst problem was what happened with the Pensions Act 2011, as I think the then Pensions Minister, Steve Webb, has since recognised.
Stephen Timms: I have a real worry about this. Is the Minster saying that, for example, if a trade union successfully called for a higher pay rise than was initially offered, the company subsequently failed and there was a problem with the pension scheme, that the trade union would have to say that it had a reasonable excuse for pressing its pay demand? That seems a strange arrangement for us to be entering...
Stephen Timms: I wonder whether the Minister would agree that it does seem very odd that a trade union making a legitimate pay claim might have to worry about whether it is committing a criminal offence because of some future damage to the pension scheme. I am very surprised that the Minister is putting in place measures that would have that effect.
Stephen Timms: I have listened with great interest to the case that the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts has been making. I have also been contacted by a reputable industry body, the Pensions Management Institute, as well as the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries, which has been mentioned. They expressed alarm about the consequences of clause 107, which the hon. Gentleman has raised concerns about. I have...
Stephen Timms: I am very grateful for the support that has been expressed and for the points that the Minister has made. I take his point that there is a consultation under way. I very much hope that the regulator will decide to require information on diversity from the schemes that are set up, and that it will continue to do so as the trustee board develops. However, at this stage I will not press the...
Stephen Timms: Would it be in order, Mr Stringer, for me to ask about clause 98 in this part of our discussion? It is the counterpart to an earlier clause and will introduce regulations to enable CDC schemes in Northern Ireland to be extended to include multi-employer schemes. Can the Minister reassure us that in Northern Ireland, as in the UK, the plan will be to introduce regulations to enable that within...
Stephen Timms: This part of the Bill gives new powers to the regulator, so it is worth recapping the problems that gave rise to the need for them. Most of the thinking here came from the joint work of the former Work and Pensions Committee—I pay tribute to my predecessor as its Chair, Frank Field—and the Select Committee on Business, Innovation and Skills, after the awful problems at two firms: BHS and...
Stephen Timms: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. She and I took part in a debate on a similar issue around 10 years ago, on the Welfare Reform Bill. She is right on this point, and that is an argument that I want to come to in a moment. I hope the approach that I am advocating will be applied to other pension trustee boards in the UK in due course, because according to a report on diversity published in...
Stephen Timms: My hon. Friend makes an important and interesting point. If we are to be confident that these new scheme trustees will make decisions that are fair to both the working members of the schemes and to pensioners, it is important that the voices of working age members should be taken fully into account in the trustee board’s decisions. She makes a good argument about why diversity, specifically...