Speeches by Whately.

“Let us put some facts on the table, because it is time for the Government to confront the hard choices. We are spending less than 2.5% of GDP on defence, but 5.3% of GDP on welfare. Six million people of working age are living on benefits. Under the Secretary of State’s Government, over a million more people have gone …”

“First, may I thank the hon. Gentleman for opening this evening’s debate, and for setting out the latest Government amendments, in place of the Pensions Minister? These ping-pong sessions with the hon. Member for Swansea West (Torsten Bell) have become a regular in my diary, and I will miss him this evening. When this B…”

“The hon. Gentleman is quoting selectively from a letter that I have written to the industry. We had this exact debate with the Pensions Minister last week. There is an acknowledged and debated collective action problem; on that, there is a level of consensus, but there is no consensus that mandation is the right answer…”

“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…”

“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…”

“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…”

“The truth is that parts of the solution to this problem are in the Bill. The pensions dashboard will give savers visibility and, with it, agency. The value for money framework will help employers choose schemes that they can justify to their employees on the basis of returns, not just fees. Those are ways to tackle the…”

“That leads us to the Minister’s central claim that mandation is necessary to solve a collective action problem—that while the sector recognises the case for higher return investments, no individual scheme is willing to move first. Now, that is a serious argument, but mandation is the wrong conclusion. He says that indu…”

“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…”

“This week we have seen a flurry of concessions. There have been revisions to the sunset clause. First, the date when the mandation power lapses, if it has not been used, is being brought forward from 2035 to 2032. Secondly, the entire regime will be repealed at the end of 2035. So, as drafted, the mandation threat will…”

“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…”

“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 …”

“The review amendment is also welcome. It introduces a post-legislative reporting requirement on scale, which will allow this House to hold the Government to account for the real-world impact of these reforms.”

“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…”

“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.”

“While pursuing the objective of scale, the Government must avoid entrenching advantage at the expense of performance. That would not serve the interests of members. It is on that basis that we tabled our amendments in the other place. The intention behind the amendments—indeed, the intention of the other place—was to p…”

“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…”

“I say to the Minister yet again that pension pots belong to the people who have worked, earned and saved. It is their money, not the Government’s. Ministers in Whitehall should not have the power to dictate what people’s pension savings are invested in. As Ronald Reagan once put it, the nine most terrifying words in th…”

“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…”

““I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help.””