Indeed, I agree with my noble friend. It is the converse of that. A cynic might say that this is all to do with managing the deficit and the debt in the run-up to a general election, but that is for us cynics, I guess.
Looking at Amendment 62, I wonder whether the Minister can help me out on what will eventually be new Section 14B dealing with the arrangements for repayment of contributions. I am a little unclear about proposed new subsection 14B(4), which states:
“Regulations under subsection (1) may provide for benefits paid to a person because of the unit of additional pension to be recovered by deducting them from the repayment”.
I am not quite sure whether the benefits referred to there are the additional pension that has hitherto been received or whether there is something else because typically one would not expect extra benefits to be paid if somebody has extra income—quite the reverse. Perhaps the Minister can help me on that provision.
Proposed new Section 61ZA is headed “Shortfall in contributions”. I was a bit bemused by this. It states:
“This section applies to a person who has one or more units of additional pension if the person … is not entitled to a Category A retirement pension, but … would be entitled to a Category A retirement pension if the relevant contribution conditions were satisfied”.
It goes on:
“The relevant contribution conditions are to be taken to be satisfied”,
but in a sense it negates the impact of that in terms of payments as you get only the additional pension attributable to units of additional pension. I was trying to fathom what that was about because if somebody is not entitled to a category A pension presumably they would only be entitled at all if they had a category B or D pension. Or is this saying, basically, that even though you do not have a pension entitlement, we will treat you as having a pension entitlement for the purposes of being able to take up these provisions? That seems to undercut one of the two requirements—and there are only two requirements—to be able to access these arrangements.
I do not know why there needs to be consultation with the Government Actuary or the deputy Government Actuary—I do not know whether you can choose who to go to for advice. I would have thought that going to
the Government Actuary’s Department would include going to the deputy if the Government Actuary is not available. But there may be good reason for that formulation. This may well be a nice little earner and deserve support on that basis, but until we know more detail it is difficult to judge. It is an odd formulation to attach this to the additional state pension in the way that is proposed.