§ Mr. Maddenasked the Secretary of State for Social Services when it is intended to publish the report of the Occupational Pensions Board on the draft Contracted-Out Employment (Transitional Arrangements) (No. 2) Regulations 1977 which were sent to him on 24th November 1977.
§ Mr. OrmeI have today laid before Parliament a Command Paper (Cmnd 7053) containing that report. I am grateful to the Board for reporting so quickly, and I have accepted all its recommendations.400W As I said in my reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Radice) on 29th November—[Vol. 940, c. 108]—the resulting statutory instrument has been drafted in the more appropriate form of a commencement order; the instrument has now been made—the Social Security Pensions Act 1975 (Commencement No. 11) Order 1977 SI. 1977 No. 2038—and was laid before Parliament today. The order provides that employers who on 6th April next are still waiting for their contracting-out Certificate should pay contracted-out rate contributions, for the time being, provided that their contracting-out applications had been dispatched to the Occupational Pensions Board by 23rd March 1978. I would like to take this opportunity of repeating how important it is, in order to avoid difficulties at the start of the new pension scheme next April, that employers should send in their contracting-out applications at the earliest possible moment rather than leaving everything until the eleventh hour.