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Lord Higgins moved Amendment No. 102:
- Page 13, line 30, at end insert—
The noble Lord said: I shall be very brief as time is moving on. I certainly do not propose going through all the details of the specific items that we are suggesting should be added to the list of regulations that are subject to the affirmative resolution procedure rather than the negative resolution procedure. The only reason I rise to speak to the amendment is to tell the Minister that, if it is at all possible, it would be helpful to have drafts of the regulations before Report stage. Although many orders are important, we believe that these particular ones should be subject to rather more detailed scrutiny. Furthermore, if she is going to circulate such drafts or further explanations, would she circulate them to the usual suspects who have been participating in our debates?
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: The noble Lord, Lord Higgins, has used the amendment to press his point on the regulations. I shall seek to be helpful, but I cannot go beyond that assurance. I have a copy of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Select Committee report, which states,
The Select Committee did not consider the particular powers in detail, apart from one, but said that,
Given the standing of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Select Committee, I am mindful of its suggestions to the House. I have circulated to the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, and to the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, a memorandum, in addition to the one that went to the Select Committee, on how we seek to use the powers. If the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, wishes to write to me between now and Report and
Lord Higgins: The Committee will be grateful to the noble Baroness for the usual helpful way in which she has sought to facilitate our discussions. I therefore beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Higgins moved Amendment No. 103:
The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 103 stands in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Noakes. It seeks to insert a new clause calling for an annual report to be laid before Parliament. This is an important amendment. I refer to the various issues we have raised during the course of debate. It is appropriate that an annual report should be laid before Parliament which includes, first, an estimate of the take-up of the state pension credit. Previously, I have referred to that matter. We are concerned about take-up, as, indeed, are the Government. On previous amendments we discussed the likely extent of take-up, or, rather, the likely extent of the failure to take up the state pension credit on the part of its intended beneficiaries. That being so, we must obviously keep tabs on what is happening under the provisions of the Bill. Therefore, we think that it is right to include the provision.
Secondly, we suggest that the cost of the provision to the department, including details of staff and telephone costs, ought to be included in the annual report. As we mentioned earlier, a department should take suitable measures to ensure that as many people as possible are aware of the provision and whether they are entitled to it. However, one also needs to have some idea of what the cost of the provision is likely to be and whether it is too high or too low. One should also take account of the actual cost of the state pension credit itself as that is closely correlated with the extent to which it is taken up.
Thirdly, the amendment refers to those pensioners who are paid less than the maximum rate of pension because of their deficient national insurance contribution records. Provided that we do not manage to make provision for them at later stages of the Bill, we should have some idea of how many are involved and to what extent they suffer if they are not treated fairly. However, that is a matter to which we shall return at later stages. We shall have to consider to what
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts: Amendment No. 104 in my name is grouped with Amendment No. 103. I should like to begin by making clear that I strongly support the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Higgins. It is clearly important with such a complex Bill that Parliament should hear about its operation on a year by year basis. The annual report is clearly a good way of doing that.
However, I should like to go further. The annual report mentioned in the amendment proposed by my noble friend is essentially a bird's eye view. I am concerned about the operation of the proposal from the point of view of those who will receive the pension credit. I am looking, so to speak, from a worm's eye view. Service level indicators are, of course, increasingly prevalent as a measure of corporate performance. I believe that they could usefully be brought into play here. The kinds of areas that I have in mind are, for example, standards set for telephone answering. Earlier the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, mentioned the use to which the telephone is likely to be put in the implementation of the new proposal. We all know that that kind of operation can lead to endless requests to "Press five, press three, press six, press seven", followed by, "I am afraid that all our lines are busy. Please call again later". That kind of response will infuriate people who seek to take advantage of the pension credit or are entitled to it. A service level indicator for that kind of thing would be a good way to make sure that the scheme is properly implemented.
Clearly, implementation will be absolutely critical. There could be similar SLIs for response times to correspondence and response times to reviews and appeals. No doubt, other Members of the Committee and the Minister will have their own views as regards what constitute the critical aspects of service level performance. Clearly, to be effective SLIs need to be published in advance and a report needs to be produced later showing how the department managed—or did not manage—to achieve the levels set for it in the following year. That is a useful way of adding to the annual report. Those who will receive a pension credit will find comfort in that, in that they will be able to see how the scheme operates. I hope that the Minister will look with favour on the amendments.
Lord Fowler: I strongly support these very important amendments. Until this point in Committee we have necessarily been dealing with a great deal of detail. The amendments are more general but they are also entirely basic. They would require monitoring of what takes place once the Bill has been enacted. All the commentators talk about pre-legislative scrutiny. I in no way decry that; it is obviously very important.
In the pensions area, the intentions of legislation and of its authors can be defeated by the way in which legislation is implemented. Mistakes can go on for years. There was an example of that only last week. The widows of thousands of former soldiers were deprived of many millions of pounds in pensions, in some cases for as long as 50 years, because of a blunder by the Ministry of Defence. The Income and Corporation Taxes Act 1952 made pensions tax free if they were,
We could also consider a case that I know only too well—that involving widows and the state earnings-related pension scheme. The intention of the legislation was absolutely clear. It was to bring widows' entitlements entirely into line with occupational schemes. The legislation was introduced by myself in a Statement in the other place. We debated the legislation on Second Reading and in Committee, and I even published a separate leaflet on the subject. My Minister of State, who went on to become Prime Minister—John Major—promised a publicity campaign. However, we moved on after the 1987 general election. There was no publicity campaign and one leaflet continued to give the wrong advice for years afterwards. Ministers took responsibility but in fact the leaflet never went near Ministers, as the Permanent Secretary said in her evidence. It did, however, go through the hands of more than 100 civil servants. Had there been a checking process—this is my point—it is inconceivable that such a mistake would have taken place or lasted for so long.
My point is that we must improve our monitoring process. Personally, I should very much like to monitor the impact of the Government's £5 billion a year pensions tax, which they have imposed and which I believe is having a dire impact on pensioners of the future. However, that is probably beyond the scope of this Bill.
However, our ability to monitor the effectiveness of the legislation is not beyond the scope of the Bill. As I made clear at Second Reading, I support the Bill and giving the extra entitlement to many thousands of people, who often, through absolutely no fault of their own, have not had the opportunity to build up an adequate pension. That is why I support the principle and practice of what is being done. But it is in everyone's interest that the Bill works as it is intended to do, that the credit is efficiently administered, as my noble friend Lord Hodgson has just said, and that it reaches the people whom it is intended to reach.
I believe that the type of provisions set out in these two amendments should be an essential part of all our legislation. I consider the post-legislative scrutiny in this country to be woefully inadequate. I believe that this Bill can put that right, at least so far as concerns pension credit. I suppose that it is too late for the House to divide. I am a new boy in that respect but I suspect that that would be highly unpopular on the other side. However, I hope that we can return to the matter on Report. I believe that there is a consensus on all sides that this is an area that needs to be tackled urgently, and there is absolutely no reason why we cannot tackle it now in this legislation.
"(e) section 9(5),
(f) section 15,
(g) section 16, or
(h) section 17(2)"
"the bill contains a large number of delegated powers which are explained in the Department's excellent memorandum (printed at Annex 1)"—
which I am sure will be tonight's bedside reading for the noble Lord, Lord Higgins.
"there is nothing in this bill which needs to be drawn to the attention of the House".
10 p.m.
After Clause 19, insert the following new clause—
"ANNUAL REPORT
The Secretary of State shall lay an annual report before Parliament on the performance of the pensions service that shall include—
(a) an estimate of the take-up of the state pension credit;
(b) the cost to the department including details of staff and telephone costs; and
(c) the percentage of pensioners paid less than the maximum state pension credit because of their deficient national insurance contribution records."
"granted on account of medical unfitness attributable to or aggravated by naval, military or air force service".
The Royal Navy and the RAF followed that ruling and did not deduct tax, but civil servants administering Army pensions failed to take account of the legislation and continued to tax. As I said, that went on for about half a century. Had it not been for the efforts of one man, it would doubtless still be going on now.
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