Lord Lucas (Con)

My Lords, I am delighted to see this series of requests for reviews. I support my noble friend’s Amendment 157. I support also my noble friend on the Front Bench in his Amendment 159, which he will no doubt speak to in due course. It echoes what the noble Lord, Lord Vaux of Harrowden, said on a previous day: we really need to understand the causes of the drop in investment in the UK and address them, rather than try to apply some layer of instruction on top without dealing with the foundations. I am particularly fond of Amendment 170A. As was shown by the last Division and previous Divisions, I feel that the Government are getting themselves into some difficulty on the question of mandation. Surely it should not be the Government telling pension funds what to do—it should be their members. Their members should have a say in and influence over the question of whether more should be invested in the UK. There is also the question of whether we should invest more in protecting us from climate change—again, that should be decided by members; it should not be mandated centrally. However well-intentioned this Government may be on mandation, there is such huge potential for it going wrong under future Governments. Members are the people who have to suffer if their investments go wrong; they should be the people whose views are taken into account.