Member

I must reiterate that, while I understand the point that the noble Baroness is making, the Government could not justify using public money in the way that she has described. It would create a moral hazard if we were to try to set out that the Government had to back any scheme in this circumstance. It would create a circumstance where, basically, if schemes made poor asset selections, they would be doing so in the knowledge that any bad bets would be covered by the Government, while being confident that any successful selections would remain in the scheme. I realise that she thinks that it would be simple to design something like that; I am advised that it would not be. In any case, we believe that it is not the right thing to do.