Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD)

My Lords, this Bill is removing the requirement for the Pension Protection Fund to charge a levy each year, and the PPF has said for some time that there will not be one this year. Indeed, our discussions on other issues today have taken us into speculation as to whether there would ever need to be a levy again if the PPF is self-funding on the investment income from its current surplus assets. The purpose of these amendments is to give the PPF more flexibility to adapt to changing circumstances and the changing landscape should a levy be needed in the future, recognising that that future might be quite a long way away. As we are now in a more robust world than when the levy was created, with the PPF and this £14 billion surplus, the levy is no longer needed and we do not know when it will need to be raised again. Amendment 203A would add flexibility to the PPF fund-raising provision so that it can raise funds that are either scheme-based or risk-based or both. That replaces the present Bill position that a scheme-based levy can be provided only if there is also a risk-based levy. Amendment 203B is consequential, and Amendment 203C would remove the requirement for at least 80% of the levy to be risk-based, which is obviously incompatible with the all-round flexibility that I am proposing in Amendment 203A. Thus, the PPF would be able to decide the type of levy and the balance between the two. The PPF itself has already publicly commented that it would support greater flexibility, and there might need to be a case for a greater proportion of any levy to be scheme-based.