LORDS AMENDMENT (Hansard, 18 November 2004)

§ Baroness Hollis of Heigham

My Lords, I beg to move that the House do not insist on its Amendment No. 359B to which the Commons have disagreed for their reason numbered 359C.

I shall try to be brief, because I suspect that there are few new arguments left to advance. We are now embarked on a process that we will need to approach carefully and responsibly; if we do not, we will go into further rounds of ping-pong and increase the jeopardy to the Pensions Bill and all the important measures in it. I am sure that no noble Lord wishes to see the Bill go down on the basis of a dispute over an amendment that was never part of the original Bill and is not part of the core arguments behind it.

The amendment concerning the raising of the maximum required age for annuitisation was reversed in the other place for the same reasons as was its predecessor on the previous day. Once again, and 1635 inevitably, it was disagreed with because it related to financial matters; it allows a member who defers vesting to continue to make tax-privileged contributions to his pension fund until he draws an income, and it creates a new tax relief by potentially allowing tax-advantaged retirement funds to be returned tax-free on the member's death.

As noble Lords will be well aware, the elected House has now spoken twice. It must therefore be evident that any other such amendment that this House agrees will be reversed on the same grounds, with the future of the whole Bill becoming increasingly precarious with each attempt. The Bill seeks to secure DB schemes both for the Pension Protection Fund and, in the shorter term, to help those who have already lost their pensions through the financial assistance scheme. It is therefore with considerable regret that I see the amendment tabled today.

I shall not repeat all the arguments; I doubt whether it would make much difference to noble Lords' minds at this stage. However, I wish to make three points. First, even were the other place to decide, quite implausibly, to let this type of amendment succeed at the third attempt, we could clearly not simply write it into the Bill at this stage without causing the utmost legislative confusion and uncertainty for those whose best interests we all seek to protect. If there were to be change, that change must be for future legislation.

Secondly, as my right honourable friend in the other place and I have repeatedly stressed, the Government are engaged and focused on this question. Noble Lords and their honourable and right honourable friends in the other place have clearly drawn our attention to the work and the data emerging from the Pensions Commission. We are therefore committed to revisiting the question of annuitisation age, on a careful and urgent basis, once the commission reports. In the light of the debates in your Lordships' House and the range of views expressed, I cannot believe that the commission could possibly overlook the issue. So, again, if there is to be a change, we are indicating the pproach route to it.

I shall return to where I started. We are here today not really debating the question of annuitisation at all; we are debating the fate of the Pensions Bill, and the measures, including the key protection measures, for people whose pensions may otherwise be at risk after 20, 30 or 40 years of seeking in good faith to work and secure their pensions. If we prolonged this debate, those measures would be put at risk. For the sake of that Bill and of all those people, I now urge noble Lords to show the humanity, wisdom and possibily even the generosity that I would expect them to exhibit at this stage. I ask the noble Lord not to press the amendment and to allow the Bill finally to pass.

Moved, That the House do not insist on its Amendment No. 359B, to which the Commons have disagreed for their reason numbered 359C.— (Baroness Hollis of Heigham.)