Member

Clause 18 confers a broad range of powers on the Pensions Regulator from compliance notices through to penalties, directions on value-for-money ratings and ultimately powers that may lead to scheme wind-up. Against that backdrop, it would be helpful for the Committee to understand whether these penalty levels are intended to act as a meaningful deterrent, a proportionate backstop or something else entirely. In particular, I would welcome some clarity from the Minister on how these figures have been benchmarked against existing regulatory regimes, whether they are expected to operate consistently across schemes of very different sizes and complexity, and why the Government have chosen to fix these amounts in the Bill. I emphasise that this amendment does not seek to weaken enforcement, but simply to probe whether the penalty framework as drafted is proportionate, coherent and justified. I look forward to the Minister’s explanation.