Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)

At the risk of receiving a glare from my Whip, I feel I have something to contribute to this group as well. I will first make a general point. If noble Lords and noble Baronesses are going to quote specific examples, we need chapter and verse in order to understand what is happening. If we are just given figures, we are meant to absorb and draw some conclusion from them, which is not possible; we need to know chapter and verse of any examples that noble Lords quote so we can analyse and see what is really going on in that particular case. I have to say that my assumption is that, with all the examples we have been given, there is a readily available, understandable situation, and somewhere along the line there has been a failure of understanding. On Amendment 20, my question for the noble Baroness, which she sort of answered, was: why is this amendment required? I think we were told that it is all too difficult, but of course it is not all too difficult. There is a big example: the London Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, which has a Conservative-controlled council, earlier this year made an interim change in its contribution rate to zero because its investment policy had been so successful. It is worth noting that it has a very successful investment policy and it is one of the smallest local government funds—something to bear in mind during the other debates on the Bill. There is a question: how often should you undertake a valuation? There is a strong argument for three years because that provides some level of stability to the council’s finances. You have to remember that, over the last year or two years, a council may be paying too much or it may be paying too little, but that is not money down the drain; it either goes into the fund or does not, and it will be available or not available at the end of the three-year period. The money does not disappear if contributions are up, and it will be reflected in the future contributions that that council will pay. I am also concerned that of course an employer will seek a review when it thinks its contribution is going to go down. I bet it will not seek a review if it thinks its contribution is going to go up, which provides exactly the sort of ratchet effect that the noble Baroness said she wanted to avoid. So it would be perfectly practical to do a valuation every year with the strength of the computers we have available now. It a long time since the day when I had to sit at a large square sheet of paper and do all the figures by hand: you just run the computer and there are the figures. I am sure the consulting firms will be happy to get all the additional fee income, but does it actually produce the advantages that we are told will be achieved through this amendment? I note the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Bybrook. I think it is a very valid point. It is a shame that whatever the local government department is called nowadays has not been involved with the Bill; it could have brought some perspective to where we are. On Amendment 20A and benchmarks, I draw the attention of the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, to a regular report from a group whose name I shall not get right—but there is a national group of local government pension schemes. Following each valuation, it produces a detailed report providing all the information she asks for. Again, the information is available. She is asking for this information, when it is already easily available online. On my iPad, I can look up all the information which it is being suggested is being hidden away. The importance of the Local Government Pension Scheme is obvious, and obviously there should be transparency, but the idea being promoted that we do not know what is going on in these funds is gravely unfair to the pension schemes concerned.