Baroness Sherlock (Lab)

We are still consulting on this. We consulted on the initial proposal and the response came back that more granularity was needed. We have to accept that clarity pulls in one direction and precision and granularity pull in the other, so the job of the Government is to support the regulator in making sure that we end up with a framework that does its primary job, which is not just to work out where a scheme is now but what the right consequences are for that scheme and then to make sure that is communicated to those who need to know in ways that are appropriate. On the one hand, the noble Baroness wants clear, strict categories, and on the other she wants to have different consequences for schemes depending on their circumstances. We think it is important to be able to judge appropriately and come up with a scheme. I would be happy to write to point out all the areas and explain more about how this works, but the point is that this needs to be understood by those who will do the assessments and the communication of the results of that has to be in the right language for those who need to understand them. As the noble Baroness knows as well as I do, it is the nature of pensions that the challenge is that marketing simple language does not map neatly onto precise legal language. I hope that at least explains what we are trying to do on that.