Pensions Bill

I absolutely accept the noble Baroness’s figures—83 per cent of stakeholder schemes were shell schemes. The point I was making, which I do not think she addressed, was about the levelling down principle, which she mentioned, and the minimum standard becoming de facto the standard standard, if I may put it that way. We already have the experience of stakeholders in non-shell schemes. Employers could have used such schemes as an alternative to the more generous DC or DB schemes they had, but they did not. They didnot level down for those schemes where they were making a contribution. I do not challenge the noble Baroness’s statements about shell schemes at all—I would be the first to agree about that precisely because they did not have an employer’s contribution—but we have a precedent which does not support what she is saying.