Welfare Reform Bill

I accept the point. In practice, we face lobbyists and stakeholders, although one could argue that the pensions industry is also facing lobbyists, albeit slightly better resourced ones who are more interested. The core issue is what the SSAC can do with this Bill in its scale and size. The SSAC is a relatively small organisation. It has a secretariat of three or four, internal to the DWP. It has 13 or 14 members. When you look at the literally thousands of people who are creating this, it is very hard to imagine an ability to take this in its entirety, with all those regulations for the SSAC to deal with. The SSAC has two functions. It deals with a regulatory rolling process, which is outside the major revolution that we are talking about. I hope that it will apply itself to particular issues on which we would really value its help. The first example is passporting. It was very much my own view that this would be a good way in which to start this process. I think that noble Lords in this Committee underplay their own prowess in this area.