Pensions Reform

I must wind up. We are serious about consensus. We welcome the spirit in which people have approached the debate. It is quite right to say that Opposition Front-Bench Members do not have to sign up to all the proposals. If they want to, they can decide to come forward with alternative proposals, and we recognise their right to scrutinise what we have put forward. However, Lord Turner’s injunction on cherry-picking was about saying that people could not just sign up to the benefits without also saying how they would pay for them. We will apply that test. When people come forward with proposals, we will ask whether they will be costed, because that is the only way in which we will generate a genuine consensus around these policies that will last for the future. Amendment agreed to. Main Question, as amended, agreed to. Resolved,"That this House welcomes the White Paper ‘Security in retirement: towards a new pensions system’ [Cm 6841] as the basis for a consensus on the future of pensions policy; recognises the importance of consensus in ensuring long-term, affordable and sustainable pension reform; and therefore welcomes the commitment of all major parties in the House to engage in the process of consensus building, while acknowledging that a number of concerns remain to be addressed in the course of that process, including the impact of the projected future level of means-testing on savings behaviour, the design of an auto-enrolled savings scheme, the need to strengthen existing occupational pension provision to reduce the risk of ““levelling down”” on the introduction of personal accounts and the need to restore public confidence in the fairness and security of the pensions system."