Pensions Reform

As the hon. Gentleman knows, I favour a single scheme for everybody, whereby we continue the basic state pension, building up investment funds alongside it, and deliver a pension that takes people off means-testing. Beyond that, it is not the duty of the House to interfere with how people save; they have a very good idea about how to save and we should not try to bribe them one way or the other. The third aspect on which I want to suggest caution is the establishment of the national pension savings scheme. The Government will call it by a different name—I do not blame them—but there are real dangers. The Government have had to listen to Front and Back Benchers remind them about the ombudsman’s report on Government liability for giving wrong advice about the safety of occupational pension schemes. I am amazed by the toughness of the ombudsman’s report about the issuing of a form that most of us never saw—I certainly did not see it and I take a particular interest in pensions. If the House establishes, and encourages people to join, a national pension savings scheme that has different funds with different rates of return, we can imagine the outcry when considerable numbers of our constituents express disquiet that they joined the wrong fund. Imagine the liability for future taxpayers if we go down that path. If the private sector wants to establish such a scheme, I am all in favour of letting it do so, but it is not the role of the Government to decide to set up that sort of framework, by whatever name. It is not right to expose future taxpayers to the mis-selling and disappointment that will inevitably arise from such a scheme. However, I welcome those in the private sector who wish to prove me wrong and think that they would be able to do a job along the lines that the Chairman of the Treasury Committee spoke about earlier.