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Session 2007 - 08 Publications on the internet General Committee Debates Pensions Bill |
Pensions Bill |
The Committee consisted of the following Members:Mark Hutton, Committee
Clerk
† attended the
Committee
Witnesses:Paul
Myners, Chair, Personal Accounts Delivery
Authority
Tim Jones, Chief
Executive, Personal Accounts Delivery
Authority
Public Bill CommitteeTuesday 15 January 2008(Morning)[Sir Nicholas Winterton in the Chair]Pensions Bill10.30
am
The
Chairman:
I welcome all members of the
Committee to this first sitting. I have a number of preliminary
announcements to make. First, if Members wish to remove their jackets
during Committee meetings, I am happy that they should do so. However,
it is up to my co-Chairman, Mrs. Janet Anderson, to decide
whether that is also part of her instruction. Members should also note
that mobile telephones, pagers and other electronic devices should be
turned off or switched to silent mode. I become very blind if Members
whose phones go off then rise to catch my eye.
I remind the
Committee that there is a money resolution and a Ways and Means
resolution in connection with this Bill, and copies are available here
in the Committee Room. I should also like to remind Members that
adequate notice should be given of amendments. As a general rule, I and
my fellow Chairman do not intend to call starred amendments.
The process
of taking oral evidence in Public Bill Committees is still relatively
novel, so I will briefly explain what is proposed so that we can all be
clear as to precisely what should go on. The Committee will first be
asked to consider the programme motion on the amendment paper, on which
debate is limited to half an hour. I will then proceed to a motion to
report written evidence, and then a motion to permit the Committee to
deliberate in private in advance of the oral evidence sessions, which I
hope we can take formally. I look to both sides of the Committee for
their agreement. Assuming that the second of these motions is agreed
to, the Committee will move into private session. Once the Committee
has deliberated, the witnesses and members of the public will be
invited back in and our oral evidence session will commence. If the
Committee agrees to the programme motion—I hope very much that
it will—the Committee will hear oral evidence today and on
Thursday, moving on to the more familiar proceeding of clause-by-clause
scrutiny next week.
We come now to the programme
motion. I understand that an amendment is to be proposed. It would be
convenient for the Committee if the Minister moved the motion formally
and the Government Whip then moved his
amendment.
That—
(1)
the Committee shall (in addition to its first meeting at 10.30 a.m. on
Tuesday 15th January)
meet—
(a) at
4.00 p.m. on Tuesday 15th
January;
(b) at 9.30
a.m. and 1.00 p.m. on Thursday 17th January;
(c) at 10.30 a.m. and 4.00 p.m.
on Tuesday 22nd
January;
(d) at 9.30
a.m. and 1.00 p.m. on Thursday 24th
January;
(e) at 10.30
a.m. and 4.00 p.m. on Tuesday 29th
January;
(f) at 9.30
a.m. and 1.00 p.m. on Thursday 31st
January;
(g) at 10.30
a.m. and 4.00 p.m. on Tuesday 5th
February;
(h) at 9.30
a.m. and 1.00 p.m. on Thursday 7th
February;
(i) at
10.30 a.m. and 4.00 p.m. on Tuesday 19th
February;
(j) at 9.30
a.m. and 1.00 p.m. on Thursday 21st
February;
(k) at
10.30 a.m. and 4.00 p.m. on Tuesday 26th
February.
(2) the
Committee shall hear oral evidence in accordance with the following
Table:
TABLE
(3)
the proceedings on consideration of the Bill in Committee shall be
taken in the following order: Clauses 1 to 57; Schedule 1; Clauses 58
to 79; Schedule 2; Clause 80; Schedule 3; Clauses 81 to 90; Schedule 4;
Clauses 91 to 94; Schedule 5; Clauses 95 and 96, Schedule 6; Clauses 97
and 98; Schedule 7; Clauses 99 to 108; Schedule 8; Clauses 109 to 111;
new Clauses; new Schedules; remaining proceedings on the
Bill;
(4) the
proceedings shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a
conclusion at 7.00 p.m. on Tuesday 26th
February.
It is a
delight to be here and to be under your chairmanship, Sir Nicholas. I
am sure that we will make great progress with the Bill under your fair
and firm chairmanship. We look forward to that and to getting the Bill
through in good
condition.
The
programme motion gives us four sessions of oral evidence and enables
those who have made submissions to answer questions, to set out their
case and to raise their concerns. From the submissions that we have had
about the Bill, we know that there is broad support. I am sure that the
evidence sessions will enable us to hear that support and to hear
people’s
concerns.
Sir
Nicholas, you referred to the timing of the start on Thursday 17
February. At the moment, the programme motion states 9.30 am, but we
want to
move to 9.00 am, because otherwise we will be sitting for about 15
minutes, which would not make much sense and would not give the
witnesses much of an opportunity, either. That is the only area of the
programme motion that I would wish to
amend.
After
the evidence sessions, we will have the opportunity to have a proper
discussion about the detail of the Bill. The schedule of witnesses
needs to be agreed, so I hope that my colleagues will be able to do
that—there have been some informal discussions. The 18
discussion sessions will enable us to have clause-by-clause scrutiny,
including a short break for half-term in February. I am sure that you
and Janet Anderson, Sir Nicholas, will be able to lead us through the
difficult parts. The Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my
hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr.
Plaskitt), is going to assist me in handling the Government side of
some of the amendments, particularly in part 3, which will enable us to
deal with all those issues and in a full and proper
manner.
There will be
a new process with regard to Government amendments, which it is right
for me to mention at this stage; a short letter to you and Janet
Anderson, Sir Nicholas, informs you of that. We will be tabling a
number of amendments, some in response to discussions but others to
clarify parts of the Bill; we have already indicated some areas that we
still have to amend. What we will be doing is setting out an
explanatory statement with the amendment. That has not, broadly, been
done in the past—it has been left to the Minister—but we
will be providing an explanatory statement of the amendment and of its
effect. With other amendments, we will ask if other members of the
Committee wish to provide an explanatory statement to their amendments,
so that the Committee can see a paragraph in writing. If the Committee
members do not want to do that, my officials will contact them and see
if they can be of help in drafting the clarification statement. That
will enable us to have a greater understanding of the purposes of
amendments and to help prepare any contributions colleagues might wish
to make. During the course of the Bill, we will also be letting members
of the Committee have fact sheets and some Keeling schedules setting
out the effects of various amendments and how they will alter the text
of the Bill, where that is
appropriate.
I am
sure that we will have a full and good debate according to the
programme motion and under your chairmanship, Sir Nicholas. I look
forward to that and to working with all my colleagues on the
Committee.
The
Chairman:
I allowed the Minister to go into some
explanation. I was hoping that he would move the motion formally and
that we would have the debate on the amendment, but it is appropriate
for the Minister to have said what he did to the
Committee.
Amendment
proposed: (a), in (1)(b), leave out ‘9.30’ and insert
‘9.00’.—[Mr.
David.]
Mr.
Nigel Waterson (Eastbourne) (Con): Thank you, Sir
Nicholas, you can tell how eager I am to get stuck into yet another
Pensions Bill.
May I
speak briefly on some of the issues raised both on the main motion and
the amendment? We will not be dividing; we support
both the motion as it stands
and the amendment. Had it not been for the amendment, the Pensions
Policy Institute would have had to distil all its wisdom and expertise
into a 15-minute session—it would have been famous for 15
minutes, as the phrase goes—which did not strike us as very
satisfactory.
Pensions
Bills are becoming an annual event under this Government and so far as
it goes, we welcome the latest one. I welcome all the hon. Members to
the Committee—volunteers and pressed men both—and
particularly my colleagues who have volunteered to help in our
deliberations. Evidence sessions on any view are going to move at a
brisk pace, if not in something of a blur. A whole week of oral
evidence sounds generous, but one can gauge from the number of
organisations that have been clamouring for the opportunity to give
evidence just how much interest the Bill
excites.
I have said
what I needed to say on the amendment—it seems perfectly
sensible. I was pleased to hear what the Minister said, both now and in
writing, about amendments. We are, of course, particularly interested
to see the Government’s amendments on the financial assistance
scheme and on giving full compensation to people who have lost their
pensions, or much of their pensions. No doubt there will be the usual
flurry of excitement as the Bill continues, about whether draft
regulations can catch up with the actual clause under which they are to
be introduced. I know Ministers always start off with the best of
intentions but those matters are not always completely in their
control. Obviously it would be helpful, given that many of the
important issues in the Bill are left to regulation, if those
regulations were in front of us during the relevant debates. I am sure
that the Ministers will do their level best—likewise with their
amendments.
I
apologise that, despite the opportunity—I do not think that
there is the obligation—under the rules, most of my amendments
so far do not have an explanatory memorandum attached. I drafted them
over Christmas, so it was a choice between Christmas and explanatory
memorandums and Christmas won. I have checked with the clerks; one has
to table the explanatory notes at the same time as the amendments so
apparently there is no opportunity to put them in later, which we would
be perfectly happy to do. Members may also have noticed that the more
recent amendments—I hope future ones—all have attached
some attempt to explain what they are about. We of course do not have
the resources that are at the disposal of Ministers. We look forward to
seeing their amendments and their explanatory
notes.
It is a great
pleasure, Sir Nicholas, to serve under your Chairmanship and that of
Mrs. Anderson. I am sure that we will have a thoroughly
enjoyable few weeks—particularly the half-term. Many of, but not
all, the issues in the Bill are based on the Turner settlement and an
element of consensus between the major parties, but there are some big
issues, and some issues on which we and the Government still disagree.
But I hope that we can, as they say, disagree without being
disagreeable.
Mr.
John Greenway (Ryedale) (Con): It is a rare pleasure to
serve on a Public Bill Committee and I want to apologise to you in
advance, as I will be absent on one or two occasions in the next five
or six weeks
because of my Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly responsibilities.
However, I intend to play a full and thorough part in the
Bill.
10.45
am
On a point of
information, the programme motion clearly sets out when we will begin
our sittings but can the Minister clarify where he expects the various
sittings to end? I am not clear about what happens on Thursday if we
start at 9.30 am. I am quite happy to sit in committee when question
times take place on the floor of the House as I think this is more
important. Other colleagues may have a different point of view. Some
clarification on when we think we will end would help because, as my
hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Waterson) says,
we do have a lot of work on this Bill and it will help us to programme
how far we need to get if we know exactly how much time we have for
deliberation. In the meantime, we look forward to serving under your
excellent
chairmanship.
The
Chairman:
I liked the hon. Gentleman’s last
comment. He has given notice that he may be absent for one or two of
the sittings because of other parliamentary engagements. It is up to
each Member to decide their priorities and if the hon. Gentleman needs
to be in Europe for important meetings representing this House the
Committee will understand.
May I say to the hon. Member
for Eastbourne, following the experiment in the last session with the
Legal Services Bill, it was agreed that a further trial of explanatory
statements on amendments should be undertaken? The Pensions Bill is one
of three chosen for the second phase of the experiment. The hon.
Gentleman spoke about the need to table the explanatory note at the
same time as the amendment, but that could be possible that that could
be changed. The amendment could be tabled and the explanatory note
could follow. I do emphasise, therefore, that this is the second phase
of an experiment. The Clerk and I have taken note of what the hon.
Gentleman has said.
Amendment agreed
to.
Main
Question, as amended,
put and
agreed
to.
Ordered,
That—
(1)
the Committee shall (in addition to its first meeting at 10.30 a.m. on
Tuesday 15th January)
meet—
(a) at
4.00 p.m. on Tuesday 15th
January;
(b) at 9.00
a.m. and 1.00 p.m. on Thursday 17th
January;
(c) at 10.30
a.m. and 4.00 p.m. on Tuesday 22nd
January;
(d) at 9.30
a.m. and 1.00 p.m. on Thursday 24th
January;
(e) at 10.30
a.m. and 4.00 p.m. on Tuesday 29th
January;
(f) at 9.30
a.m. and 1.00 p.m. on Thursday 31st
January;
(g) at 10.30
a.m. and 4.00 p.m. on Tuesday 5th
February;
(h) at 9.30
a.m. and 1.00 p.m. on Thursday 7th
February;
(i) at
10.30 a.m. and 4.00 p.m. on Tuesday 19th
February;
(j) at 9.30
a.m. and 1.00 p.m. on Thursday 21st
February;
(k) at
10.30 a.m. and 4.00 p.m. on Tuesday 26th
February.
(2) the
Committee shall hear oral evidence in accordance with the following
Table:
TABLE
(3)
the proceedings on consideration of the Bill in Committee shall be
taken in the following order: Clauses 1 to 57; Schedule 1; Clauses 58
to 79; Schedule 2; Clause 80; Schedule 3; Clauses 81 to 90; Schedule 4;
Clauses 91 to 94; Schedule 5; Clauses 95 and 96, Schedule 6; Clauses 97
and 98; Schedule 7; Clauses 99 to 108; Schedule 8; Clauses 109 to 111;
new Clauses; new Schedules; remaining proceedings on the
Bill;
(4) the
proceedings shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a
conclusion at 7.00 p.m. on Tuesday 26th
February.
Ordered,
That,
subject to the discretion of the Chairman, any written evidence
received by the Committee shall be reported to the House for
publication.—[Mr.
Mike
O’Brien.]
Ordered,
That,
at this and any subsequent meeting at which oral evidence is to be
heard, the Committee shall sit in private until the witnesses are
admitted.—[Mr.
Mike
O’Brien.]
10.48
am
The
Committee
deliberated
in
private.
11
am
On
resuming—
The
Chairman:
We will now hear oral evidence from
representatives of the Personal Accounts Delivery Authority. I welcome
the witnesses here today: Mr. Paul Myners, chairman of the
Personal Accounts Delivery Authority; and Mr. Tim Jones,
chief executive of that Authority. Perhaps they would like to introduce
themselves to the Committee and those who are here to listen to what is
going on so that they will know which is which and who is
who.
Paul
Myners:
Sir Nicholas, we can not only
see you with great clarity, but hear you with great clarity. We are
delighted to be appearing before your Committee. Thank you very much
for inviting us. I am Paul
Myners, the non-executive chairman of the Personal Accounts Delivery
Authority. On my left is Tim Jones, who is the chief
executive.
The
Chairman:
Thank you. You have taken authority and
introduced your chief executive. So often the boot is on the other
foot, where the chief executive carries the authority, but quite
clearly you carry considerable authority as chairman. I liked the way
you did
it.
Q
11
Mr.
Waterson
:
Good morning and welcome. Will this new
scheme be up and running in 2012, or is there a plan
B?
Tim
Jones:
The policy intention is that the
personal accounts scheme will launch in 2012, and it is my job, and the
delivery authority’s job, to meet that intention. We have no
evidence at this stage that that is
unachievable.
Q
22
Mr.
Waterson:
You will have noticed that we have tabled quite
a few amendments that deal with lump sum contributions, transfers and
the annual contribution cap. Would you like to develop in a bit more
detail from your perspective—particularly the IT
perspective—the mechanics of setting up this massive undertaking
and the trade-off of complexity, cost and possible
delay?
Tim
Jones:
This is a very large and complex undertaking.
Compared with a large occupational defined contribution pension scheme
today, where there might be one employer and 10,000 members, personal
accounts prospectively will be dealing with up to 1 million employers
and around 5.5 million active members in the early stages. As the
scheme matures, that number will grow relatively slowly, but it will be
complemented by large numbers of dormant members—perhaps twice
as many—as the thing settles
down.
You are quite
right to say that this is a significant challenge, and we are working
hard in our advisory phase at the moment to advise the Department on a
number of elements of that challenge. One of the most important things
for us is that the scheme remains as simple as it can be. I have
already described the scheme as “beguilingly simple”, in
the sense that we do not want to have bells and whistles on this
scheme. We wish it to be a simple scheme. But, already, unique
features, such as the contribution cap, no waiting period, and our EU
legal duty to allow people from across the EU to sign up, mean that
there are considerable administrative complexities. So our clear advice
is to keep the scheme as simple as is
practical.
Q
3
3
Mr.
O'Brien
:
The Bill gives you a wide range of
responsibilities and obligations. Can you set out the priorities that
you see in terms of implementing the provisions of this
Bill?
Paul
Myners:
PADA is advising the Department for Work and
Pensions on the deliverability of its policy, in line with the remit
set out for us in the 2007 Bill. I can only reiterate Tim
Jones’s answer that it is essential to keep the personal
accounts scheme simple, to keep costs down, to keep communications
simple and understandable to an audience who will be new
to
pensions, and to minimise delivery risks. Keeping it simple is critical
to the successful delivery of personal accounts. Every further bell or
whistle that is added to the scheme will have to be paid out of
people’s retirement income. That cost will have to be reclaimed
from members’ accumulated savings. As the Bill passes through
Parliament, I would urge Parliament to keep this message in
mind.
A further
focus for PADA’s work at the moment is preparing detailed plans
for implementation. This will be completed by the end of March. We are
already assembling the skills and competencies necessary, particularly
through the appointment of Tim Jones as chief executive. I would pay
tribute to the quality of the work that has already been done by DWP
staff in getting us as far as we are. From my perspective as a
businessman who has primarily worked in the private sector, the work
that has been done here by members of the DWP has been of the highest
quality.
We have also
had the first meeting of our consumer representative committee, chaired
by one of our non-executive directors. We will shortly be issuing a
consultation document on charges, and we have begun an extensive
programme of communication with stakeholders. We are a very open and
transparent organisation. We will be available to anybody who wants to
make representations to us as a supplier, a user, or somebody who has a
nexus with us. We will also be seeking to appoint additional
non-executive directors—we have recently agreed terms with a
firm of executive research consultants to appoint additional
non-executives to our board—and we will, in particular, be
looking for an employer representative on the board to balance the
excellent representation we already have on the employee side through
Ms Jeannie
Drake.
Q
44
Andrew
Selous (South-West Bedfordshire) (Con): Pursuing the
administrative theme a little further, the Department has not had a
happy history in terms of its computer provision over quite a number of
years. That fact has been looked into by the Public Accounts Committee,
among other bodies. Can you tell us anything about the computers for
PADA? They are going to have to be fairly substantial and will need to
work well. I do not know whether you are constrained by commercial
confidentiality considerations, but I would like to know whether you or
the Department will be running the computer systems, particularly in
terms of the long-term management of the computer schemes. The PAC has
picked the Department up on that issue in the past and has accused it
of not being capable of being an intelligent
customer.
Tim
Jones:
First, may I draw a brief distinction between
PADA and the trust-based scheme, the personal accounts board, which we
occasionally call PAB? PADA—the thing that Paul is chairman of
and I am chief executive of—is a relatively unusual animal. It
is going to be a non-departmental public body, stewarded by the
Department for Work and Pensions, but its role is to be a transient
NDPB to assist in setting up the trust-based scheme of personal
accounts and to assist the pensions regulator with compliance
activities in regard to the new employer duties. PADA itself will
therefore have relatively limited computer support—it will
basically be limited to office support.
May I refer your question to
the trust-based scheme—the operational entity which will have
the job of running the 5 million-member defined contribution scheme?
Our intent in this area is to procure business services through formal
public sector procurement processes. It is not my intent to create an
IT system myself as the foundation as a set of business processes, and
nor do I think that it is the intent that the DWP will bid to be the
supplier of that. We are going through a process of market engagement,
and we have engaged with a wide variety of potential interested parties
from the private sector. Our intent is to procure a series of business
services from
them.
If I may add a
little colour to that answer, where we have been looking at fund
management and fund administration we have, I think, concluded thus far
that our requirements are not that different from the requirements of
other occupational pension schemes. Therefore the inherent risk in the
procurement of those business services is relatively low. On the scheme
administration side—where member records are held and all
that—the novelties in personal accounts of scale and nature mean
that that really is quite different and new, and I therefore expect to
focus a lot of my energy on managing out the inherent risks in the
procurement of that area of business
services.
Q
5
5
Nick
Ainger (Carmarthen, West and South Pembrokeshire) (Lab): I
am sure that you have read the report of the Bill’s Second
Reading debate in Hansard. My hon. Friend the Member for Colne
Valley (Kali Mountford) raised an issue relating to people who are
below the £5,000 threshold and perhaps employed in multiple
jobs. Would it be PADA’s responsibility to encourage the people
who fall into that category—the figures seem to indicate that
there are about 40,000 of them—to opt into the personal
accounts? Is the system flexible enough to take account of the
likelihood that they are people who are going to be moving in and out
of different jobs—all low paid and so on, with probably little
continuity? Bearing in mind your comments that we need to keep it very
simple, is there potentially a problem because of the complex nature of
the people who are just below that £5,000
threshold?
Paul
Myners:
There are issues on which we continue to work
around the effective management of both the lower limit of earnings and
the upper limit of earnings and contributions, and more work needs to
be done. We are clearly concerned about a situation in which a worker
may have a number of jobs, some of which, or all of which, fall below
£5,000 of earnings from a single employer, but in sum exceed
£5,000. Finding a method by which we are able to bring those
people into personal accounts is clearly important and we are working
on that at the moment. May I invite Mr. Jones to add
something?
Tim
Jones:
We have recognised that as an issue and we are
exploring it. I think that it is too early to say where we will land,
if we will come forward with a specific proposal to deal with that.
More generally, it is likely that we will identify a number of features
that are desirable, where we conclude, in a sense reluctantly, that in
order to mitigate and manage the risk to first launch, we do not make
provision for all of them. That is just the straightforward risk
management of getting something big and complex to live
launch.
We welcome the notion of a
review of the scheme in 2017, which arose from the Work and Pensions
Committee, and it may be that some of the topics get put forward for
review at that point. On this specific, we recognise the issue and are
working on it, but I will be counselling my board—I counsel you
now—that in order to manage risk, there will be a number of
occasions when I will say, “Yes, it’s an issue, but
let’s get the core scheme launched first and see, when that has
settled down successfully, whether we can deal with some of these
important but further
points”.
Q
6
6
Nick
Ainger:
I am sure that you appreciate the real issue. Here
we have the lowest paid in our society, and there is the issue of
complexity. I understand the reasons why we have set the thresholds
where they are, and that they can be moved up or down. I understand
that thresholds have to be set, but surely there are ways in which we
can target those people and encourage them at least to come into the
personal accounts scheme. This is a rather rambling question but do you
envisage promoting personal accounts directed specifically at those
people who are below the £5,000
threshold?
Paul
Myners:
It was not a rambling question at all. I
think there is a real need here—and you have correctly put your
finger on the importance of communication and information. We will be
exemplars in communication, not only to our clearly understood and
defined target market, but also to those of the sort you described who
should be in that target market—people who are earning
individually less than £5,000 but in aggregate more than
£5,000. We will be working hard to develop highly effective
communication. Indeed, our consumer panel and our employer panel will
be specifically charged with giving us advice on issues relating to
communication and the provision of information.
Of course, it is not just
personal accounts that would be relevant to these employees. We want to
make sure that we are able to bring workplace pension provision to
those from the community that you describe—of which personal
accounts are one option, but the insurance and savings industry will
have other options. Indeed, one of our statutory obligations is not to
replace commercial provision, but rather to work to complement
it.
Q
7
7
Mr.
Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con):
Following the question from Andrew Selous about administrative costs,
may I ask you, Mr. Jones, to consider clause 10 on
employers’ duties? There has been quite a significant increase
in the estimate of administrative costs between the publication in
December of the regulatory impact assessment and the current
assessment. Why do you think there is such an increase and what
assessment has been made in terms of the likely administrative costs
that will fall on small or
micro-businesses?
Tim
Jones:
You are correct that there has been an uplift
in the assessment of those costs. The reason for that was not any
change to the underlying activities that are being asked of businesses:
it was just a better assessment of the way in which that burden will
fall between the very largest and the very smallest enterprises. There
are some elements of a fixed nature, which obviously are a relatively
bigger burden for the
very smallest enterprises because the employer will have to introduce
the concept of this scheme to the workforce. The reason that the figure
rose was a change to the methodology in the model of the way in which
the costs of the same activities were estimated to land in different
parts of the business community.
We are content with, and have
worked closely with colleagues in the Department on, that modelling, so
I would say that we think it is as good as it can be at the moment. I
would also say that I expect it to change again. This issue is so large
and complex that as the mists clear and as we get toward a clearer
understanding in exact detail of what the processes will be, we will
look to refine that model
further.
Q
88
Mr.
Jackson:
What do you say about the second part of the
question in respect of the general estimates? Are you expecting the
estimates of administrative costs to rise significantly as you remodel
the
methodology?
Tim
Jones:
I hope not. Part of the reason that that might
happen and might be out of our control would be if—through the
course of the passage of this Bill or the scrutiny of secondary
legislation—things change which alter the burden or the
procedures. We have among our principles a duty to consider doing this
in a way that minimises the burden on employers. We take that principle
very seriously, so we are going to be working particularly through the
employer representative committee as we set that up to consult through
it and other stakeholders directly on ways in which we can keep the
employers’ burden as small as we reasonably
can.
Q
9
9
Alan
Keen (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op): You have already
mentioned that you are not going to operate the computer systems
yourselves. Can you say whether the IT work is going to be done two
levels down? Are you going to employ consultants to help you decide
which computer company is to provide the system? Would you give us some
of your early
thoughts?
Tim
Jones:
We will be procuring business services through
a formal, EU, public-sector procurement process—the publication
of what are called OJEU notices in the Official Journal
of the European Union and then the procedure that follows on from
that. It is a little early to be absolutely clear about which of the
individual processes available under that umbrella of processes we will
be following. We will, as PADA, have a mixture of our own staff and
consultant support within PADA—my procurement team, within the
executive team—managing that process. The business services that
we procure will be from a contracting party. That contracting party or
parties, at the end of this process, will have a contract that, I am
sure, will be rich and have service level agreements and all the rest
of it. That is how we will manage the outcomes and at the quality
levels that we
wish.
The real issue
is the way in which we work the process in a high-quality manner, the
way in which we develop our conversations and the quality of the
documents that we put out. I can assure you that, having delivered a
number of reasonably complex systems of scale in my principally banking
past, I take very seriously indeed the process of creating
specifications that lead to good outcomes.
Q
1010
Alan
Keen:
Have you had or will you have the chance to look at
what happened in the health service? I get the impression, looking at
arm’s length, that we—the taxpayer—were let down
pretty badly by the providers of the IT systems. It did not look, to
me, that the taxpayer was compensated by the companies that failed to
produce what they were supposed to produce. Have you had any thoughts
on
that?
Paul
Myners:
Subject to Parliament’s discretion,
personal accounts, as envisaged, will involve a series of functions
that already equates quite closely with those offered in the private
sector. That is to say, we ought to be able to draw upon existing
systems and methods, as opposed to designing and building something
that is entirely novel and particular to the requirements of personal
accounts. We are, of course, aware of the challenges of
implementing major systems arrangements, but Mr. Jones and I
bring quite a lot of relevant experience from the private sector.
Mr. Jones was head of the retail bank NatWest and I was
chairman of Marks & Spencer and have been on the board of companies
using technology, such as O2, Orange and Lloyds, so I am familiar with
major IT projects. I believe that the reviews already carried out of
the work done at PADA by the Office of Government Commerce and by the
Treasury’s major projects review group have already spoken very
positively about the competencies that they have seen within the PADA
unit, as far as the management of major systems projects is concerned.
However, we do not take these issues lightly—we recognise that
there are major challenges here. We are going to have to be absolutely
on our toes, because we are talking about very substantial sums of
money.
Alan
Keen:
I am quite comforted. I am a lot older than you are,
and I worked on the first mainframes, transferring management
information on to the first mainframes in industry way back—more
than 35 years ago now. I have wisely, since I have been in Parliament
for 11 years, kept at arm’s length any experience I had before
in the private sector, but I am comforted by what I
heard.
Q
11
11
Gordon
Banks (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Lab): I would like to
touch on the employer’s role in the provision of information and
on the burdens on and the safeguards for both employers and employees.
Obviously, employers will have the duty to provide information on
personal accounts. If that is correct, what form will this information
take, and is there a need for registration of receipt of the
information by the employee that will prevent possible future claims of
negligence and non-compliance when somebody says 25 years down the
line, “My employer never told me about this; therefore I
didn’t register; therefore I want to make a claim”? That
in itself is both burdensome on the employer and the employee, but also
has built-in safeguards for both. I have two other brief points, but
perhaps you would like to take that one
first.
Paul
Myners:
I will be brief to give you time to ask your
further questions. Importantly, the employer will provide information,
not advice, and it is critical to understand that. Secondly, we will,
both at PADA and in our work with the employer panel, devise ways of
ensuring that the communication burden on the
employer, in terms of cost, is kept to an absolute minimum. I would add,
in parentheses, that there is very real advantage here to employers who
previously had not been able to make workplace pension provision a part
of their offering to employees. I believe that many employers will rise
to the challenge and opportunity that this provides to embed better
relationships between the employer and the employee. So it is not
entirely a burden: there is a very significant opportunity here through
the communication exercise. The responsibility to ensure that an
employer has complied with their legal obligations in terms of the
provision of information will lie with the regulator, which in this
case will be the pensions
regulator.
Tim
Jones:
One of the things we are beginning to
discover, as we start to get down into the guts and the detail of
thinking this through, is the very broad range of skills, aptitudes and
understanding in the employer community of workplace pensions. Our
target market is, primarily, a very large group of employers that has
not chosen to offer workplace pensions, so we are expecting, in
practical reality, the level of engagement, of understanding and of
knowledge to be extremely variable.
I fully support what Paul has
said, that there will be a tranche of employers who will do a great job
in communicating this to their workers, and there will, frankly, be
other employers who will do a less good job. We intend to provide
excellent information from the PAC scheme and, through our work with
the pensions regulator, we will see what role it has, although its role
is primarily around compliance. This is one of those areas where, of
course, we all want the employer to do the best job. In practice,
however, to reach the full set of the worker
community—including, for example, agency workers, who will be
involved in this—we think there is a role for the trust-based
scheme to be pointed out as an information source to workers quite
early in the process, so that it can then directly provide
information.
Q
1212
Gordon
Banks:
So will there be a registration form that employers
will have to keep to say, “Yes, I provided you with this level
of information at a certain point in time”, so that there can be
no future claims of
negligence?
Paul
Myners:
That would be a matter for the pensions
regulator.
Q
13
13
Gordon
Banks:
Okay. A couple of points about costs were possibly
touched on earlier. What are your projected costs and number of
employees? Also, Mr. Jones, you mentioned earlier the
millions of dormant members. Has there been any projection—any
crystal ball gazing done—as to how long a dormant member may
remain a dormant member, and therefore how often a member may flit in
and out of buying into the
process?
Paul
Myners:
May I take the first point, and then
Mr. Jones will take the issue of dormant membership? The
total cost of personal accounts will be dependent, importantly, on
decisions made by this Committee and by Parliament, in terms of how
simple we keep the basic product. We are, therefore, to some extent
dependent upon you, because that in turn will drive our product
delivery specification and cost, which in turn
will impact upon the volumes of business that will be written by
personal accounts and by the commercial sector. From that we will be
able to deduce the organisational structure that is
required.
It is too
soon, therefore, to answer that question. Until you have specified what
you want built, we cannot give you a quotation. I am sure
Mr. Jones will give you a more precise answer on the second
part of your question.
Tim
Jones:
Mr. Jones has forgotten the second
part of the question. I would be grateful if you could remind
me.
Q
14
14
Gordon
Banks:
The second part of the question related to the
dormant members and projections on how many people might flit in and
out.
11.30
am
Tim
Jones:
Thank you—a senior moment. On dormant
members, one of the things that is unique about personal accounts is
prospectively the ban on transfers in and out. Let us add to that the
large number of temporary migrant workers in this country that we have
seen over the past few years. I do not have a crystal ball and I do not
know whether these circumstances will continue into the future, but if
they do, it is entirely plausible that we will have millions of workers
from across the European Union who come to the UK, work, qualify, have
a national insurance number and a personal account, go back home and
have no further involvement with personal accounts until they
decumulate. I apologise—until their pot turns into a retirement
income, the technical term for which is
decumulation.
This is
a significant challenge to us. We are required under the law that
applies to a defined contribution trust-based scheme to communicate
annually with all our members. The default for that is a snail mail or
paper communication, although it is possible to ask people to opt for
electronic communication. I ask you to think about the practical
difficulty of making these communications to millions of people. I am
very glad that the ban on transfers out has been brought up as a
subject for discussion in the 2017 review because, from an operational
perspective, I could make a case for allowing us to be able to transfer
out these very small pots. This would reduce the administrative burden
that will fall across the cost of the scheme, arising from a large
number of dormant accounts.
Paul
Myners:
May I make a further brief observation, which
may help the Committee to understand the role of personal accounts? We
have a universal service provision obligation. We will have to take
business from any employer and any employee that is offered to us as a
business line. A commercial provider would, for instance, be able to
cross-sell other products to certain of the pension savers in a certain
type of product arrangement and would be able to transfer out small
balances and dormant accounts to another provider or oblige the holder
of those dormant accounts to transfer the business away if it was
uneconomic to service that business. Personal accounts will not be able
to do that. We have a universal service provision obligation that makes
us different from the commercial sector provision. It is worth bearing
that in mind as you look at this aspect of the
Bill.
The
Chairman:
We thank Mr. Myners
for that additional comment. In order to help both our witnesses and
members of the Committee, I am obliged to conclude the questioning
around mid-day—in other words to allow the question that has
been put to be dealt with before the Government Whip adjourns the
Committee.
I have
already noted that Paul Rowen, Jim Cunningham, David Borrow, Mike
O’Brien, Andrew Selous and Stewart Jackson still have questions
to put. I call Paul
Rowen.
Q
15
15
Paul
Rowen (Rochdale) (LD): Thank you, Sir Nicholas. What
assessment has been made about the adequacy of generic financial advice
in enabling people in perhaps very complex financial circumstances to
opt out of the pension
scheme?
Tim
Jones:
The first thing to say is that the
trust-based, personal account scheme will work extremely hard to
provide very good information to prospective members as they determine
whether or not to stay in, having been automatically enrolled. It will
not be for the trust-based scheme to deal with that issue as it applies
to workers looking at the same topic—“Do I stay
in?”—against the range of other workplace schemes that
will be around. This issue is not just about personal accounts: it goes
right across the issue of the provision of workplace pensions. We have
a duty to provide excellent information in support of that decision for
people looking prospectively at personal accounts. It may well be that
we would encourage people to look beyond that and to make it clear to
them that other areas are available for advice, but the focus of
personal accounts will be relatively narrow, and I think properly so,
to help people in that context to determine whether they should opt out
or stay
in.
Q
16
16
Paul
Rowen:
Nevertheless there are people on housing benefit or
at a certain age—approaching retirement
age—and I know that the Thoresen review is looking at generic
financial advice. Have you made any assessment of what that generic
advice needs to provide? Otherwise, there is a danger people are going
to say, “This is too complex. I am just going to opt
out.”
Paul
Myners:
I do not think, Mr. Rowen, that
the advice we would hope to be provided under the heading of generic
advice is unique or specific to personal accounts. That is to say, the
issues around auto-enrolment and those captured by the description of
“pay to save” already exist. There are already
arrangements in place for auto-enrolment into occupational schemes, so
the questions that arise under “pay to save” are not ones
that are consequent upon the introduction of personal accounts. They
are a feature of existing pension provision. Therefore, I believe that
the questions that the recipients of advice need to answer are not
driven by personal accounts alone, and I do not think that our views
about the expectation of provision of generic advice will differ from
the representations that will be made to you by the Association of
British Insurers or others who have an active interest in this
area.
Q
17
17
Mr.
David S. Borrow (South Ribble) (Lab): You have already
made it clear that this is very much work in progress, and you argued
earlier the benefits of keeping it simple. To what extent have you been
able to look at lessons from overseas, or are planning to do so
in the future? I would raise specifically the KiwiSaver scheme in New
Zealand.
Tim
Jones:
I am glad you asked that question. We already
have four consultants in the team who have direct KiwiSaver experience,
so we are learning from their previous lives. We have very recently
agreed a secondment from the United States thrift savings plan and
someone will come and be with us for nine months. This afternoon, I am
meeting a Senator from Australia, and we will talk about
“Supers”. This morning I was reading a review of a
meeting held with the Swedish PPM—the Premiepensionsmyndigheten
initiative. We are casting the net reasonably wide for a set of
precedents. Interestingly, none of them are exactly the same as what we
are doing here, but there are overlaps and different learnings. We are
very cognisant of the fact that we need to look around the world and go
and talk to people to learn, but also, if we can—as we have now
with KiwiSaver and with the thrift savings plan—directly to
bring people into the team so that they can add their
perspective.
Q
18
18
Mr.
Borrow:
To what extent is the involvement with systems
overseas of benefit in terms of designing the internal system, but also
in terms of giving Ministers advice about the complexity and simplicity
argument? Ministers may wish to have complexity to deal with fairness
issues that have been raised. Do you consider that lessons could be
learned from overseas experience that might assist you in your advice
to Ministers in that
area?
Paul
Myners:
Each geographical jurisdiction will have
different requirements—a function of their own national law,
customs expectations, the interface of pensions with benefits, and
other forms of legislation. However, there are central and common
features, and we are seeking to learn from the experience of
others—both in terms of approach to policy and
implementation—as indeed others are seeking to learn from our
experience. In the world of pensions, what is happening in the UK with
personal accounts is a matter of major interest, because we are
establishing one of the largest and most complex pension arrangements
known, or currently planned to be operated, in the world. So there is a
lot of interaction; a lot of people want to come to speak to us. The
good news therefore is that I do not have to send Mr. Jones
to New Zealand, Sweden or Australia to learn those things—those
people are coming to see
us.
Q
19
19
Mr.
Jim Cunningham (Coventry, South) (Lab): Following on from
that question, and looking at the international dimension, will you be
looking at charge
structures?
Paul
Myners:
We will, and in fact we will be issuing a
consultation document in the next fortnight on the approach to
charging, in which we will set out a range of options and seeking
views.
Q
2020
Mr.
Cunningham:
To follow on from that, have you got any ideas
of your own for keeping the charges low and
simple?
Paul
Myners:
To be highly efficient in delivering a
simply, straightforward product, we will follow the same basic
principles that have characterised much of the work that Marks &
Spencer does.
Q
2121
Mr.
Waterson:
Moving on to the issue that has become known as
“levelling down”—you will have seen the most
pessimistic of the projections made by the Pensions Policy Institute in
its recent work for the Nuffield Foundation—can you take a few
minutes to see how you define your relationship, as the new kids on the
block, with existing pension schemes of reasonable
quality?
Tim
Jones:
The fundamental thing is that we want to be
part of a change to the outlook that people in employment have in the
UK that moves from “Workplace pensions are something that some
people have” to “Workplace pensions are something that
everybody has”. They become the norm; they become usual. That is
the key transformation that we wish to be a part
of.
There are a set
of reasons—in a sense well rehearsed—as to why the target
market that personal accounts are focused at has been difficult for the
private sector to address. Paul and I would both see that not as a
market failure—the market correctly recognises that it is a very
difficult sector to address because of the very large number of small
employers and the costs of approaching it and so on. It is our job to
address that target market. Our aim is to work very
collaboratively—we are talking directly to a number of the
leading players in the private sector, and people like the National
Association of Pension Funds and Association of British Insurers and
others who represent them—to build a positive, constructive
working relationship. That is what is happening so
far.
We want to get
to a place where there is more, in real terms, private sector
provision, balanced by a thriving and successful personal accounts
scheme. That is the goal and we are therefore focused on meeting that.
I expect that the “tonality” and
“salience”—as marketing people would call
them—of personal accounts as we get them right for our target
market will make the scheme credible, valued and trusted. These are all
attributes a pension savings scheme has to have. But they will make it
distinctive and will leave, I hope, plenty of space for the private
sector to complement that. The upper earnings limit really does focus
the mind on a significant opportunity above the personal
accounts—for higher-paid workers for
example.
11.45
am
Paul
Myners:
Only that levelling down has been a feature
of the pensions sector for some time, given the closure of
defined-benefit schemes and the move to defined-contribution schemes
with lower levels of contribution. It is very encouraging that the
DWP’s own research has suggested that employers do not intend to
reduce contributions. Indeed, a significant percentage intends to
contribute more than the statutory minimum. If personal accounts
achieve their goal, we will awaken interest and awareness in pensions
so that they become something that the employee seeks in an employment
offer. About 7 million to 9 million people currently working in the
private sector have no occupational pension arrangement in place. We
want to introduce a climate where the employee expects pension
provision—and, indeed, becomes familiar with making judgments
about and comparing pension
provision—so that it becomes something that is to some extent
demand driven. That is one of our clear goals in terms of the
effectiveness of
communication.
Q
23
23
Mr.
O'Brien:
You both rightly said that simplicity was the key
to dealing with issues such as charges and to ensuring that a scheme
could deliver for such a large number of people at a reasonable cost.
Some people, however, will want an element of choice: they might want
sharia-compliant investments, environmentally-compliant investments and
so on. To what extent do you intend to offer some degree of choice,
bearing in mind that each choice adds
cost?
Paul
Myners:
We spent some time with the Work and Pensions
Committee on this issue and on striking the right balance between
offering sufficient choice and so much choice that it confuses. All the
evidence suggests that a high percentage of employees will opt for the
default fund. Private sector experience here and the experience of
similar arrangements elsewhere—in Australia, Sweden and
Denmark—is that the default option proves to be the one that
most people choose. Therefore, we will have to do a great deal of work
around the design and articulation of the features of the default
option. Around that, we will create a range of funds that gives
sufficient, but not excessive, choice. Then, through the process of
consultation with the member panels and the employer panels, we will
test prospective new products. To some extent, I think it is refreshing
that the product range is one of the things that will work to sustain
interest in, and awareness of, the work of personal accounts. However,
we will always do that against the test that it should be
self-financing, and that we should not get cross-subsidisation from one
customer to another as far as product cost alone is concerned, as
opposed to the total cost of the
scheme.
Q
24
24
Mr.
O'Brien:
You said that you would have to look at
consulting on some of these investments. How do you propose to go about
consulting and reporting back publicly on your investment strategy, not
only in terms of the default scheme, but in terms of the other schemes
that will give some element of
choice?
Tim
Jones:
We are planning a formal consultation on
investment strategy, and that will be the method. People will have an
opportunity to look at a document that sets out our thoughts on
investment strategy and to provide their views on that. I echo what
Paul said. That will cover our ideas about the construction of the
default scheme—internal estimates are that up to 80 per cent. of
the money could end up there—but we will also be setting out our
thoughts on other
funds.
To set
expectations, our conversations so far are about maybe getting funds
into double figures—six, 10 or 15—but not 50, 100 or 150.
Again, the shape is focused on the target market of people who are
largely new to pension provision. Yes, there are social and ethical
funds. There might be a level of interest in those, and then there are
those for different religious communities—sharia is a good
example. There is a range of things to be consulted on, and we will do
so
formally.
Paul
Myners:
I would expect the performance of our funds
to be a matter of national interest.
Paul
Myners:
We will report to Members and to the public
on how the funds have performed against their benchmarks. We will
specify the benchmarks clearly because we have to be clear that in a
number of these funds there will be risk, as there is with any DC
arrangement. Therefore, we have to be very clear in the way that we
explain to prospective investors that the value of investments can fall
as well as rise in the short term, but experience would suggest that
over the long term they may be appropriate investment for
consideration. We will set very high standards here. We would also work
with the Financial Services Authority to make sure that we draw on its
input.
The
Chairman:
I am going to call John Greenway very briefly
because he has not come in yet. I hope that he will be brief because we
have something like nine minutes before we need to adjourn, and at
least three other Members have caught my
eye.
Q
25
25
Mr.
Greenway:
I was happy to wait until the end, but you have
called me and this touches on the subject. The moment you introduce a
choice, we are back to the vexed old question of advice. Following on
from what Paul Rowen said, we all have high expectations of getting
some clarity on the subject from the Thoresen review. Until we have
that, it is impossible to make judgments about what is going to happen.
I suspect that, in collaboration with the retail distribution review
that the FSA is undertaking, the whole area of advice may be
recast.
Would you
accept that if people have a choice of funds, they are going to have to
make decisions? If they make the wrong decisions—choosing the
wrong fund for them at their age and stage in life, for
example—they might have a disappointed realisation, and the
whole question is likely to arise about who is then responsible for
them making the wrong choice. That will be for not just one person, but
a great
many.
Paul
Myners:
Mr. Greenway, your scholarship and
interest in this area is well known. However, the issues that arise
with personal accounts are no different from those that arise with
other retail investment products. Parliament and the FSA have clearly
determined the difference between products sold under advice and those
sold under information. Personal accounts will be sold under
information. That is equivalent, in FSA terminology, to execution only,
rather than advice. But, the Thoresen work—and, indeed, that of
the industry—in continuing to promote awareness will undoubtedly
help people better understand the information that they are being
provided
with.
Q
26
26
Andrew
Selous:
Two brief questions. Would it help the launch of a
successful personal accounts system if those people who, through no
fault of their own, had been auto-enrolled and then got no benefit in
retirement could have some form of restitution? Do not define what that
would be—perhaps we all need to go away and think about that.
Would that help your job in selling this to the mass market, which we
would want to do for personal accounts to be a success? My second
question concerns some employers in really cut-throat industries where
margins are low who might offer financial inducements to their
employees not to join to
save on their contributions. There would then not be a level playing
field for employers. Do you think that there should be some stick to do
something about those
employers?
Paul
Myners:
I invite Tim Jones to answer the first
question. I will take the
second.
Tim
Jones:
The point on restitution is a broad one that
covers the whole landscape of pension provision. It is therefore a
matter of policy for the Department and not for us in the Personal
Accounts Delivery Authority. We are just one player in a landscape of
players. The issue already exists with people being automatically
enrolled into workplace pensions. As a stakeholder we might have an
input into the debate, but it is a debate across society and therefore
properly taken forward by the
Department.
Paul
Myners:
Can you remind me of the second
question?
Andrew
Selous:
It was about employers offering financial
inducements to their employees not to go into the scheme to get a
competitive advantage.
Paul
Myners:
This is a legitimate area for parliamentary
concern and ministerial guidance. My experience of chairing the Low Pay
Commission is that employers are particularly concerned about the
competitor around the corner who they think is cheating. We must make
every effort to ensure that that does not occur, otherwise we are
failing in our obligations to employers in a competitive market and
also letting down the employee.
Q
2727
Nick
Ainger:
Coming back to the last question from Nigel
Waterson about levelling down, 75 per cent. of employers with an
occupational pension scheme are contributing more than 3 per cent. What
evidence do you have that, by introducing the new scheme with a 3 per
cent. contribution from employers, you are not going to see employers
either reducing their contribution in existing occupational pension
schemes, or even closing them down and moving their staff into the new
scheme that you are running? Is there any evidence internationally that
that has happened or has not
happened?
Paul
Myners:
The most relevant evidence is the research
carried out and published by the DWP, which suggests that employers
will not be reducing their contributions. Those who have already shown
the foresight to put in place pension arrangements have acknowledged
the value to their company of having employees with good pension
provision. They are working harder to explain to their employees the
value of that pension provision. There is now more awareness of
pensions issues and people recognise the provision as a valuable part
of the employment offer.
There is no reason to believe
that those who have concluded that they should offer a pension
arrangement with a generous employer contribution should in any way be
deflected from that conclusion by the creation of a new vehicle for a
totally different market—those who are currently not being
offered any pension provision at all.
Tim
Jones:
May I briefly add that I think the ban on
transfers in is also going to be a significant factor in people not
closing down existing provisions and
moving across because you will not be able to take the accrued pot from
the existing scheme and bring it into personal
accounts?
Q
2828
Mr.
Jackson:
Clause 61 of the Bill gives the organisation the
authority to borrow money. In the past, the Government have had some
issues regarding semi-autonomous agencies such as the Assets Recovery
Agency. This is a potential concern. May I ask Mr. Myners
who he would borrow money from? What collateral would he have, and for
what purposes might the authority borrow
money?
Paul
Myners:
The envisaged capacity to borrow for personal
accounts is no different from that available to occupational pension
arrangements. It is already embodied in law that pension schemes can
borrow. The borrowing to establish the scheme—the borrowing for
development—is one of the options that should be available to
us. If we were to consider, after careful evaluation of all the
financial options, that borrowing to finance capital cost was an
appropriate route to adopt, the borrowing would be secured against a
future income and by personal accounts.
The
Chairman:
We look as if we have come to
the end of our questions. May I pose a question to our two witnesses,
because taking evidence at the beginning of a Public Bill Committee is
an experimental procedure? Do you think that coming to give evidence to
members of a Public Bill Committee is helpful in the scrutiny and
understanding of legislation? Mr. Myners, perhaps it would
be appropriate for you to deal with that question.
Paul
Myners:
Sir Nicholas, not having
had experience of the previous approach, I can only say that we have
welcomed the opportunity to meet Members of Parliament. We benefit from
the insights that we secure and we have gone out of our way to make
sure that we have opened up direct dialogue with representatives from
the official Opposition and the Liberal Democrats, and specialists in
the pensions area. The scrutiny that you are able to develop as a
consequence of engagement with those who provide evidence will
hopefully be helpful. Ultimately, it is for you, as the recipients of
the evidence, to determine whether you have been enlightened. We have
appreciated the opportunity of meeting you and feel that we have helped
to further the case for personal accounts a little as a consequence.
Thank you very
much.
12
noon
The
Chairman:
Mr. Myners, I have to say from the
Chair that I am totally and completely 100 per cent. impartial in these
matters, but I just felt that, because this is an experiment and still
in its early days, I would ask that question, which I hope has been
appreciated by Members on both sides of the
Committee.
On behalf
of the Committee, may I thank you, Mr. Myners and
Mr. Jones, for the valuable and helpful evidence that you
have given the Public Bill Committee this
morning?
Further
consideration adjourned.—[Mr.
David.]
Adjourned
accordingly at two minutes past Midday till this day at Four
o’clock.
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