Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, for Amendments 129 to 131 and for the time he took to discuss them with me. I recognise his intention to clarify the roles and responsibilities of strategic authorities and pension funds in making local investments. I agree that it is very important for roles and responsibilities to be completely clear. We want strategic authorities to play an active role in bringing forward investment and guidance. We will further explain the Government’s expectations. I just point out that there is in the Pension Schemes Bill a reciprocal requirement for local government pension funds to co-operate with strategic authorities. The wording of “identify and develop” in this context is consistent with that requirement, which makes it a bit late to change that just now. The meaning of “development”, however, can be clarified in guidance. Pensions guidance will confirm that there is no requirement to invest in assets that are not deemed suitable as pension investments. This should provide the noble Lord reassurance. Schedule 20 includes a requirement for local growth plans to set out key projects for achieving economic growth through private or public investment. The guidance on local growth plans already makes clear the expectations and support available to mayoral combined authorities and to mayoral combined county authorities for developing and taking forward that pipeline of investment opportunities. Further, government guidance for local government pension funds will explain the meaning of this requirement for them. This guidance will further clarify our expectations in this context. I am very happy to discuss this with the noble Lord outside the Chamber as we develop the guidance. Therefore, I respectfully ask the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, to withdraw his amendment.