UK Parliament / Open data

Pension Schemes Bill [HL]

My Lords, I shall speak briefly to each amendment in this group. The noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, has a series of amendments on data accuracy—there was also one in the first group—which I have signed. It is important to have accuracy, especially when there are matters of significant value and security. Ensuring that records are accurate and are kept up to date should be in-built from the start of operations, and as the dashboard is starting out there is no reason not to take that precaution.

I have expended time and energy tracing and correcting inaccurate records on pensions and with banks. Key causes of corruption and inaccuracy have been that information was not transferred accurately, or sometimes was not entered accurately in the first place but particularly when legacy systems did not join up with a new system. It is immensely important that pensions information is not lost or inaccurate, as that can also open the door to potential scams or other sales pressures built around tracking pensions or correcting pension data.

With regard to the pensions dashboard, I agree with what has already been laid out by the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, so I will not repeat it. Transactions are the dangerous point. They are certainly not where the focus should be as dashboards are set up and their operations tested, but it is going to be very tempting for commercial dashboards. Commercial companies may find a way to get around that, but this information would give the FCA as the regulator a direct guide to what is to be expected so that it could take action against any circumvention of the intentions of the amendment. I therefore support all the amendments in this group.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
804 cc649-650 
Session
2019-21
Chamber / Committee
House of Lords chamber
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