Baroness Altmann (Non-Afl)

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso. I pay tribute to him. He will be much missed by this House. His work on this Bill and in many other areas has been most welcome and helpful and his demeanour and the manner in which he has co-operated with us and with Ministers has been appreciated by everybody. I declare my interests as far as pensions are concerned. I am an adviser to a master trust and a non-executive director of a pensions administration company. I will not delay the House too long, but I want to welcome the changes that have been made. I thank the Minister for her patience, her engagement and for listening and working with this House. We have now achieved much safer and better outcomes for members of pension schemes. These will allow trustees and managers to look after the best interests of members so that they do not feel forced to invest in ways that they might not otherwise have chosen to or which are against their best judgment. There will not be an exclusion of listed investment companies. Again, I thank the Minister and the Government for listening to the serious concerns that were expressed by this House. I also welcome the changes that we have made along the way to the Bill. It is a much better Bill. I thank all colleagues across the House who have co-operated so well. I must pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, for all the work that she has put in, and the Front Bench on this side as well, who have worked so hard to make this Bill a better Bill. I wish this Bill well. Hopefully, a lot of pension scheme members will enjoy better retirements in the future—I certainly hope so—as a result of what we are doing now.