Baroness Sherlock (Lab)

I believe so; if that is not correct, I shall write to my noble friend to correct it. Coming back to his point, the underlying fact is that we believe that the way to protect the interests of members is via the trustees and the statutory protections around trustee decision-making. I apologise to the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, as I misunderstood his question in our debate on the previous group. I am really grateful to him for clarifying it; clearly, he could tell that I had misunderstood it. At the moment, when a scheme provides discretionary benefits, the scheme rules will stipulate who makes those decisions. In many cases, that involves both the trustees and the sponsoring employer, as may be the case in what the noble Viscount described. When considering those discretionary increases, trustees and sponsoring employers have to carefully assess the effect of inflation on members’ benefits. But, as the noble Viscount describes, if it is not agreed, the employer may effectively in some circumstances veto that. We think the big game-changer here is that these changes will give trustees an extra card, because they will then be in a position to be able to put on the table the possibility for surplus being released not to the member via a discretionary increase but to the employer. However, they are the ones who get to decide if that happens, and therefore they are in a position where they suddenly have a card to play. I cannot believe I am following the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, in using the casino as a metaphor for pensions, which I was determined not to do; I am not sure that that takes us to a good place. But it gives them an extra tool in their toolbox to be able to negotiate with employers, because they are the ones who hold the veto on surplus release. If they do not agree to it, it ain’t going anywhere. So that is what helps in those circumstances.