Danny
Alexander: I, too, heard the comments on the “Money
Box” programme that the hon. Gentleman has read out. Being, no
doubt, as keen a listener as him—I am sure that all members of
the Committee are regular listeners to that programme—I was
perplexed and concerned by Mr. Jones’s comments. In
due course, Mr. Jones corrected those comments. Perhaps he
did not do so as quickly as Admiral West, but it had happened when he
gave evidence to this
Committee. 1.15
pm Tim Jones is
someone with a huge amount of professional skill and is held in the
highest esteem and respect by those people he previously worked with,
and so the amendment being debated should not be seen in any way as
casting doubt on the competence of Mr. Jones and his team at
PADA. The question is, if there were doubts in his mind—and he,
no doubt, has discussed these with the Minister, and the Minister has
reassured him, no doubt, about the deliverability of the
timetable—then it is important that the Minister shares the
pressures that may exist in terms of meeting quite a tight
timescale.
As I
understand it, there are a number of steps that need to be completed
over that four-year period in order to ensure that the personal
accounts scheme can be up and running. The contracting process for the
administrative software and people to actually run the administration
of the account, because it is quite naturally subject to European Union
rules—we return to those and, no doubt, will return to the
European Union again at some point—about public procurement.
This is a process that—I understand from the procurement side of
this—will take at least 14 months, and possibly longer, before
that commissioning is completed. I guess, probably quite naturally,
that commissioning process cannot start until this Bill has become
law. So there is a
situation where, in an unknown period, this Bill will become
law—I guess the Minister is hoping for May or June, when it has
completed its passage in both houses. There is a period of slightly
less than four years, in which that commissioning process has to be
undertaken successfully, the team to put it in place has to be
recruited and so on—which will take a bit of time—and
then there obviously has to be appropriate testing to ensure that the
system works perfectly before the start date of the scheme.
There are
clearly some significant practical hurdles and tight deadlines that
have to be kept to along the way to ensure the target date of 1 April
2012 is met. It seems to be me to be quite right that it should be met
but, as the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Waterson) has
quite rightly said, only one thing would be worse than missing the
deadline, and that would be a botched
launch. It is quite
right that the Minister should have to reassure the Committee that he
is satisfied that there is sufficient time for all those practical
steps I have
described, and no doubt many other steps along the way to ensure the
successful launch of PADA, to be met in the timescale—which will
be slightly less than four years by the time this Bill, if it does,
receives Royal Assent—so that we can be sure that the deadline
the Government have quite rightly set for the launch of the scheme can
actually be
met. Mr.
O'Brien: It is important to get personal accounts
right—that includes to deliver it on time—but a prudent
manager will recognise that events are something, as Harold Macmillan
mentioned, that are not always in the control of those who would wish
to have them under control. The policy intention is that the personal
accounts should be delivered in 2012, and nothing we are aware of at
this point would prevent that from happening. That has not changed. I
had not tied myself down to April of 2012, but it does seem to be a
reasonable date as a target to launch it on. But it may well be that
for other reasons there are other times of the year that might be more
appropriate. But as far as we are concerned, there is nothing we know
that would prevent a 2012 launch.
So that is what we are aiming
at; that is what we expect to hit, and Tim Jones has been brought from
the private sector in order to ensure that we have a senior executive
who is able to deliver a project of this kind on time, on budget, and
to enable it to create the mechanisms to deliver personal accounts,
bearing in mind that PADA itself will not deliver personal accounts. I
can give that
reassurance. Tim Jones
has a background which has not involved having to weather the uncertain
waters of politics, or politicians’ ability to salami-slice
words—or, indeed, journalists’ encouragement of what
appear to be innocuous comments which are then repeatedly referred to
in Parliament. I agree that Paul Lewis is an estimable journalist who
does indeed know how to do an interview and get a story, as he did on
this occasion. Tim Jones has, however, assured me that he knows of
nothing that would stop him from delivering in 2012, and he fully
intends to see that that happens. I hope I can reassure the hon.
Gentlemen on that point.
The reason I do not want the
amendment in the Bill is that we have not fixed on 1 April 2012 as a
precise date. That is a reasonable target date for the moment, but it
may be better, for all sorts of reasons, including presentation of
better dates, to move it a month or two one way or the other. We are
still targeting 2012. That is when we expect to deliver, but I do not
want to enshrine that in the Bill. Primary legislation is not the place
to set out precise dates for implementation of reforms. It is the place
to set out the principles of a reform and the approach to reform, and
it is only sensible to retain some flexibility in the start date. Who
knows what might happen over the next four years, or how the pensions
landscape may
change?
Danny
Alexander: I just want to press the Minister on one point
to do with the timeline. While I can see his point about not being
ready at a particular date, I want to be reassured that he has looked
at the public procurement timelines that are involved in this process
and is satisfied, given all the legal restrictions on public
procurement contracts of this size, that the process can be completed,
implemented and tested in good time for a 2012
launch.
Mr.
O'Brien: We know of nothing which would
prevent the public procurement timetables from being met within the
time scale we are seeking. We do have four years, and that gives us
enough time to go through delivery. I have seen how Government
procurement—of computer systems and other things—has not
in the past always been completed on time. That is also the case in the
private sector. I cannot provide a cast-iron guarantee that every
independent private company that has a contract is going to be able to
do its job perfectly, and therefore it is useful to retain some
flexibility. At the
same time, I do not expect them to fail to deliver on the contracts; if
we expected that, we would not be signing them up. We expect that those
who make arrangements to deliver personal accounts will be able to
deliver on their contracts. The time scales are not so tight that they
do not have some built-in flexibility, and we should therefore be in
good time to be able to deliver this
project.
Mr.
Waterson: I am sorry to say that I am not at all reassured
by that answer. First of all, the suggestion that it could even be
December 2012, and not necessarily April. I agree with the Minister
that April is the logical time to start, because it chimes with the tax
and accounting years, and so on. Although Paul Lewis is a prince in his
profession, I take the Minister’s point about journalists. I
think the Minister’s point about Tim Jones’ comments to
Paul Lewis got it the wrong way round. It is because he is not a
politician that he does not have that natural guile to try to disguise
the reality. That is the point.
There are two things we do know
for sure, unless the Minister has something up his sleeve. One is that
between now and 2012 there will be an election and a new
Government—hopefully a Conservative one—and almost
certainly a new Minister in charge. Because we have our ambitions to
win that election, I take the Minister’s point that a new
Minister would have the same concerns about putting a start date on the
face of the legislation. I have a sneaking suspicion that some poor
devil—it could even be me—arrives on day one after the
election as the Pensions Minister and very near the top of his in-tray
will be a report from PADA saying we cannot possibly do this by 2012
and these are the reasons.
I think it is
time we nailed this down because I have reached the age where I do not
like surprises. Let me offer a deal to the Minister. I am prepared not
to press this amendment to a Division if the Minister will agree to
share with us—and we do have a legitimate interest as the
official Opposition—the results of the review that
Mr. Jones is conducting. That seems fair. If he wants to
suggest doing it on Privy Council terms, I would not object. I do not
know what the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey
thinks.
Danny
Alexander: The suggestion made by the hon. Member for
Eastbourne is wholly sensible. If there is a review being undertaken it
should be shared with spokespeople for the opposition parties or on
whatever basis the Minister thinks is appropriate. This is a critical
issue and if there are problems to be identified by PADA I think we,
too, ought to know about
them.
Mr.
Waterson: I am grateful for that
intervention. It is simply a matter of good governance and of
consensus. If this consensus process is to have more than lip service
paid to it by Ministers, on something as important as this and something
as nuts and bolts as this—there is no great politics in this
issue—we all want to play our part in making sure that this
happens on time and properly. I am happy to give way to the Minister
but I will not press this to a Division if he is prepared to give us
that
undertaking.
Mr.
O'Brien: It is a matter for the hon. Gentleman whether he
presses this to a Division or not but as I understand it there is not
going to be a report to publish or share. What the hon. Member has
already done, I understand, is talk to Tim Jones. I would be very happy
for him to go and discuss these issues with Tim Jones and Paul Myners.
That invitation extends to the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn,
Badenoch and Strathspey. The hon. Members are able to discuss these
issues with the managers of PADA, on the basis that any commercially
confidential information will be kept confidential. I am not aware of
any final report or anything that I am able to share, so I am not in a
position to do so.
What there
will be is an ongoing process of Tim Jones looking at delivery
projections, devising plans for delivery, ensuring that timescales are
met and, in due course, revising those timescales and plans to meet
managerial issues that normally arise in the development of a project
of this kind. Throughout that process, on the basis of consensus, I am
very happy that either hon. Member can engage with PADA. Indeed, I know
Tim Jones and Paul Myners would welcome that degree of interest from
our leading politicians who have shared the process of creating PADA
and personal accounts. I hope that provides sufficient reassurance. I
fear I cannot go further than that. I hope he can withdraw his
amendment but that is a matter for
him. 1.30
pm
Mr.
Waterson: I am not sure that takes me a lot further. Let
me explain why. Yes, we have already had some discussions with Tim
Jones and Paul Myners and have every intention, as do they, of
continuing those discussions. It is sensible from both their points of
view, as well as ours, that in a massive undertaking like this, which
in anyone’s view is going to straddle another general election,
the Government and the official Opposition should both be in the loop
about what is going on. I was not suggesting that Mr. Jones
is going to produce a report of the sort that might be put in the
Library of the House of Commons.
However, unless he is doing the
review on the back of a fag packet, I assume that he is going to
produce some internal conclusions and I assume that he is going to
share them with Minister, perhaps just in the form of a two page
letter. Even a one-paragraph letter that says, “Not on your life
mate, there is no way we can deliver this by 2012, you’ll be
lucky to get it by 2015”, would be worrying enough. All I am
saying is that the Minister should share that with us as part of the
consensus process. Unless the minister can give us that undertaking, I
will seek to press this to a division. I do not know if that finds
favour with the Liberals as well, but that is my intention. Clearly
nobody has a review without coming up with some conclusions, and the
results of the review ought to be shared with us. We ought to know
anything that the Minister knows.
Mr.
O'Brien: I am not unhappy that the hon. Member for
Eastbourne should know broadly what is going on. I cannot understand
quite why he thinks that he is not going to be told the conclusions by
Tim Jones. We have ongoing project management. There will be things on
paper that Tim Jones works to and there will be plans and proposals
that he will have negotiated with the board. I do not know of any
reason why he should not share those with the hon. Gentleman. The best
approach would be for him to go and talk to Tim Jones about how best he
would want to do that. I am not prepared to take it any further than
that. There is no wish on our part to be other than appropriately
commercially confidential. I have no great problem with sharing basic
commercial issues with either the hon. Member for Eastbourne or the
hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey providing
that they are kept confidential. I have made that clear and I think
that that should be enough. It is a matter for him whether he wishes to
press it to a vote.
Mr.
Waterson: I do not want to labour the point—there
may be a feeling that I already have—but I have one final
thought. I entirely take the point about commercially sensitive
information; there is no way that I want or need to have access to that
stuff, nor I suspect does the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn,
Badenoch and Strathspey. If the result of the review is a conclusion by
Tim Jones, whose judgment and experience I totally respect, that this
cannot be delivered on time, I want to know almost as soon as the
Minister knows. That is what it boils down to and that is probably why
we will have a division on the
amendment.
Question put, That the amendment be made:—The
Committee divided: Ayes 3, Noes
8.
Division
No.
2] Question
accordingly negatived.
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