My Lords, I should declare a historical pecuniary interest as a former independent director of the Financial Ombudsman Service. I should also declare that my home is in Durham so I have often visited Barnard Castle, but solely for the purpose of visiting the wonderful Bowes Museum. My eyesight is okay for the moment. I will save my remarks on data issues until a later group, but I will briefly address the other two issues raised by amendments in this group.
On regulations, concerns were expressed on all sides in Committee about the use of Henry VIII powers and the skeleton nature of much of the Bill, especially Part 4, but I am grateful that the Minister has engaged with us throughout this process on these and other issues. I think that it will make for a better Bill in the end.
I am grateful to have had sight of the draft regulations under Part 1, even if I would have preferred to see all the remaining draft regulations before Report. I am very glad to see the government amendments clarifying the scope of some of the regulations and those which make regulations affirmative or confirmatory. If nothing else, it saves me from tabling endless Motions just to ensure adequate scrutiny. However, I will be interested to hear the Minister’s answers to the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, the noble Baroness, Lady Fookes, and the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, about the retained use of the negative procedure and other matters related to delegated powers.
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Amendment 33 was tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, on actions taken to ensure diversity in trustee boards. We had a really good discussion on these issues in Committee and I will not repeat my remarks from then or the comments of my noble friend Lord Foulkes of Cumnock. We all know that there is an issue with diversity on pension boards: the noble Baroness was right to reference Black Lives Matter and the need for appropriate representation on trustee boards.
There is also an issue with gender. I have never quite recovered from the PLSA finding that in 2016, a quarter of trustee boards had only men on them and that, on average, 83% of trustees were male. That is extraordinary. The regulator decided not to go ahead with a requirement similar to what is in this amendment because there was no consensus. Instead, TPR’s equality objectives for this year are: to establish a diversity and inclusion committee and to develop a four-year diversity and inclusion strategy and action plan. It is good to see action, but is the Minister confident that there is enough urgency in this approach to tackling the serious lack of diversity on pension scheme boards? I look forward to her reply.