Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)

My Lords, I was not intending to speak because this is way out of my comfort zone, but I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Brixton, on securing this debate. I spent a year in opposition as a shadow Minister trying to encourage women in particular to enter into a pension scheme. This is a classic example of how fiendishly complicated UK pensions are. I have a number of questions for the Minister, who is quite an expert in this field having shadowed it for a number of years. I welcome her to her place in this Administration. The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee says in its second report that it remains concerned about the cumulative burden of so much regulation on the schemes. While the Explanatory Memorandum states that there were two waves of consultation, it is still not entirely clear how much support for and understanding of the scheme there is. However, my main concerns relate to paragraphs 9.3 and 9.4 of the Explanatory Memorandum, which cover the impact assessment and the schemes’ mind-boggling costs. Paragraph 9.3 states: “Initial implementation costs, including familiarisation, could total around £36.8 million in the first year” alone; I am not surprised, given how complicated it is. It goes on to say: “Schemes may then face ongoing administration costs of £5.4 million per annum”. However, paragraph 9.4 states that there will be “an estimated increase of around £7.1 billion to around 1200 schemes over the 10-year period”. Will there be any sort of watch to see whether those figures are final—or, indeed, whether there may be some liquidity in them? They might not represent the final cost going forward but they are eye-watering. It is right to update the code but, in view of the figures, have the Government reached a verdict on what the cumulative burden on the schemes will actually be?