Speeches by Whately.

“Like last week’s amendments, the amendments before us today make the mandation power in the Bill less bad. They constrain it in terms of timing and scope, but they do not solve the problem, because the problem is not the percentage, the threshold or the duration of the power but the principle. If something is wrong in …”

“The Minister and I agree that we want to see more investment by pension funds in the UK, and we want to see better returns for savers. The industry backs that aim too; that is why it did the Mansion House Accord. But to be clear, when he says that he has industry backing for this, there is a distinction to be made betw…”

“The Minister has also introduced an amendment to limit the Government to only exercising the mandation power once, giving them just one opportunity to set the asset-allocation requirement. I recognise that that gives more certainty to industry, as there is less risk of moving goal posts. He has also updated from last w…”

“Size alone does not equal success. Take football clubs as an example: a larger club may have greater resources, a bigger stadium, more expensive players and larger crowds, but none of that guarantees results on the pitch. I am told that one need look no further than Tottenham Hotspur to see that. We welcome the Governm…”

“Secondly, the Minister has said that this is merely a reserve power—and one that the Government have no intention of using. But a reserve power does not sit harmlessly on the shelf. It shapes behaviour, and I think, in truth, the Minister accepts that. He has said as much to me before—that the power will achieve its en…”

“Unfortunately, that is where our agreement ends, and I suspect the Minister knows that, so let us turn directly to the elephant in the room: mandation. The Minister has advanced a number of arguments in its defence, and I will address them in turn. First, he said that this is a natural extension of the Mansion House ag…”

“What a difference a week makes. When the hon. Gentleman rose to conclude our debate last Wednesday, he delivered from the Dispatch Box what I can only describe as a tirade. Serious and considered concerns—not just from me and my hon. Friends, but from noble Lords and many respected people across the industry—were met w…”

“This is an extraordinary hill for the Minister to choose to die on. Mandation was never put to voters, it never had the backing of industry, and it should not be forced through Parliament now. I urge the Minister to think again.”

“I do appreciate the Minister’s attempt to offer an olive branch on mandation—several olive branches, in fact. Last week an amendment was tabled to constrain his originally unlimited and undefined mandation power that would have meant he could direct up to 100% of default pension fund savings to be invested in assets of…”

“As I think the right hon. Gentleman will have heard in my speech, there is widespread agreement that we want to see more investment by pension funds in the UK; the debate is about whether mandation is the way to achieve that. Actually the Minister’s main argument for the mandation powers is not about investment in the …”

“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The last Division we voted on was on a motion proposed by the Government that grouped a series of amendments with which we agreed, alongside amendments on mandation, with which we had strong disagreements. What steps can be taken to bring about a separate Division on the manda…”

“The Minister may be planning to say in his wrap-up that the Government already intervene and that there are all manner of regulations shaping trustee behaviour, and of course there are, but there is a fundamental difference: regulation protects the process; mandation dictates the outcomes. That is the line that this Bi…”

“Now to the question of scale, the Bill assumes that if schemes offer a strong proposition and good member outcomes, there is nothing to stop them growing. We disagree; it is not that simple. For instance, it is exceptionally difficult to win new business in today’s market without already being an incumbent or large ins…”

“Today we have also heard the Minister reach for one last defence—and strangely late in the day. He claimed that mandation was in the Labour party manifesto. It was not. There is no mention of mandation, no reference to a reserve power, no suggestion of asset-allocation powers of this kind. The Labour manifesto did talk…”

“Who knew that the Pension Schemes Bill would become so controversial? It is a Bill on which there was so much consensus; a Bill begun by one party in government and now being continued by another; a Bill that could have sailed through Parliament. But no, that was not to be, because the Government had an idea—a bad idea…”

“My hon. Friend is exactly right. Sometimes the Pensions Minister talks about this all as being technicalities, but the fact is that the Government are coming after people’s hard-earned savings, and the public can see it. The Government think it is a pension pot they can mess with. We know that it is people’s own saving…”

“The Minister mentioned that the water taskforce will be meeting with David Hinton, the chief executive of South East Water, to hold him to account for its abysmal performance in the recent outages. If that taskforce finds that South East Water’s response has been inadequate, as I believe it was, what action will the ta…”

“I thank the Minister very much for taking a second intervention from me. I do not disagree that the country needs more homes; that is an accepted fact. However, what we have seen under her Government is housing targets being shifted out of London, so that London’s numbers have fallen and the numbers in the constituency…”

“Will the Minister give way?”

“I commend my right hon. Friend on securing this debate and on the speech he is making about the challenge of supplying water to Tonbridge and Malling, now and in the future with such a huge number of developments planned. Given the difficulty of supplying water to his constituency, where there are 19,000 more homes pla…”