Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)

Once again, I find myself in the position of being in broadly the same area as the noble Lord, Lord Fuller. I agree with much of what he said. We can always be in favour of reviews. The only substantial objection is that the Secretary of State—or more accurately, the hard-pressed officials—has better things to do, particularly with having to implement the Bill when it is an Act. The Pensions Commission is also crucial. The noble Viscount, Lord Younger, for whom I have a lot of respect, challenged me on why I am not doing more on adequacy, in effect. Of course, the answer is that I fully support the Pensions Commission; that is where the focus should be on that area. I think my noble friend the Minister is aware of some of my views on the level of inadequacy in pension provision, but the commission is where it should be at. Pensions are inherently political. I make no apology for making political points. I am against the idea of moving towards a joint regulator. There are two broad types of pension provision: individual contracts and employer-sponsored collective provision. I am very much in favour of the latter as opposed to the former. The former has, and always will have, severe problems, whereas collective provision is what has led the high standard of private provision across, broadly, half of the working population. The problem with having a single regulator is essentially cultural. One or the other approach is bound to predominate in its thinking. It is impossible to ride two horses, unless you are in a circus, and that is not where we want to be. We need a regulator for collective employer-sponsored provision, and a regulator for market-based provision. That is what we have got so, in a sense, in my few remarks I have already carried out the review that has been called for and reached a satisfactory solution.