My Lords, I thank the Minister for at least part of that response. I also thank him for the clarification of “authority”, although it alarmed me somewhat more than I thought it would. The only more alarming thing would have been if he had said that it was the Treasury. It is clearly not within the bounds of the scheme to assess it, so my noble friend’s point in a previous debate is rather more valid than I was hoping it was. We will perhaps return to that at a later stage, at least informally.
On the amendments in this group, I read the Hutton report fairly thoroughly at the time. I do not recall the noble Lord, Lord Hutton, advocating that we should have negative adjustment. Clearly there is a balance of risk, which is reflected in the changes to the substance of the scheme that has been proposed by the Government and, in the case of the LGPS, has been accepted in the negotiations between the employers and unions. If the noble Lord seeks further rebalancing of the risk over and above what is already reflected in a scheme, which, I remind him, has been endorsed by the sponsoring department and, however grudgingly, by the Treasury, that reopens a can of worms.
Were I in the Minister’s shoes, which thank the Lord I am not, I would probably have said, “I will not accept the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, but I will accept the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell”. In that case, I would clearly have deferred to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, and I and the rest of us could go home reasonably satisfied. As it is, the Minister on the one hand has said explicitly that he is going to reject that amendment, but on the other has described a process that did not seem a million miles from my noble friend’s advocacy of the affirmative procedure.
The Minister said that if there is a negative movement in the index, Parliament should have a fully and thorough debate, having a couple of paragraphs earlier said that it was run of the mill legislation. It is clearly not run of the mill if it has not happened for 30 years. That full and thorough debate would normally be accompanied by an affirmative procedure, or something very like it. I am therefore not feeling quite so negative towards the Minister as I thought I would at the beginning of his remarks. He has said that he will go away and look at this. I think that if he looks at it carefully, he will come back and accept, or propose something equivalent to, my noble friend Lord Eatwell’s proposition. In that case, although I will not be completely satisfied, it
gives a serious safeguard for the members of these schemes, and for the coherent administration of and trust in them, which are so important to tens of thousands of local authority workers and dozens of local authority employees.
I do not regard the Minister’s reply as satisfactory, but rather than press my amendment to the vote or encourage my noble friend so to do, we have to grab hold of the Minister’s offer of further consideration and see what he comes up with at this rather late stage of the Bill. Nevertheless, an important consideration now faces him. I am grateful for his commitment thus far, and therefore beg leave to withdraw the amendment on that understanding.