Member

Amendment 218 relates to the AEAT scheme. The Government cannot accept the amendment, and I will try to explain why. As covered in an earlier debate, and as was set out in the responses to both the PAC report and the Work and Pensions Select Committee inquiry into DB schemes, this matter has been extensively considered. Whatever noble Lords may think, what I was trying to say last time was this. When I say it has been extensively considered by Parliament, there were debates in the Commons in 2015 and 2016. I defer to the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, as to the quality of debates in another place but I would not presume to comment on them, never having been a Member of that House. My brief tells me simply that it was considered there. There was also a report by the National Audit Office in 2023.