§ Lord McIntosh of HaringeyMy Lords, with the leave of the House, I wish to make a personal statement. In the debate on pensions yesterday, the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding, said that I gave,
the figure for stakeholder pensions sold as 1½ million".He went on to say:I hope that the Minister"—that is, my noble friend Lady Hollis—will therefore recognise that her colleague"—that is, me—misled the House by a factor of 20 per cent".—[Official Report, 5/3/03; col. 859.]This is what happened. My briefing said that the figure was 1.15 million. I said, and I quote from the tape:There are 335.000 employers involved with stakeholder pensions. A hundred"—and I hesitated—one and a half million stakeholder pensions have been sold".I clearly mis-spoke. I apologise unreservedly to the House for that error, but I hope that the House will acquit me of any intention to mislead.