Occupational and Personal Pension Schemes (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018 — House of Lords, 2019-01-15
Topic: International Affairs
John Gummer (Conservative, Centre-right): I perfectly agree with my noble friend that I did not always produce legislation that was perfect the first time round. However, I did consult. I would not have dreamed of having a situation like this, where after I had published the legislation and told people that there was no need for consultation, I then found that there was a need for consultation. In this case, my noble friend is coming to the House and saying, "Although we got it wrong the first time, we know we are not getting it wrong the second time". I know that she does not wish me to refer to what has gone on in other SIs, but the trouble is that there is beginning to be a pattern here. There is an assertion that proper consultation is not needed but it is then found, after they publish the document, that a series of people from the industry come up with really very serious matters. In two cases, those matters could affect the lives of people in this country because of the way in which the legislation has been framed. My noble friend really does have to understand that we are not having this argument for some esoteric reason or because we happen not to like the withdrawal Act. We are having it because, by accident, we have come to understand that when you work this out, discuss it and think about it, it does not turn out to be quite the legislation that we were told it was. That is the next reason why I find it difficult to accept this SI Then there is the question of cost. Evidently, it was not thought necessary to have a consultation because it would not be cost effective to have one. I do not know how much it costs to withdraw an SI and then to replace it, but that does not seem to be a cheap alternative to having a proper discussion in the first place. I do not understand why there could not be a consultation. After all, if the consultation had taken place at the time the original SI was laid, it would have happened, it would have been over, and we would have known that there had been such a consultation Lastly, I will talk for just one moment about the whole question of cross-border activity. This SI says, "If we leave the European Union, and if we leave it without an agreement, we are putting in place something that will enable us to be an island which does not have any outside connections at all but our own internal arrangements". This means that we are going to reduplicate what are, at the moment, some of the arrangements which are done across the whole EU. I do not see here the cost of having entirely our own system and the cost to pension operators in this country of having to make new cross-border arrangements themselves. That does not come into the impact assessment. There is no question about that cost, but it is not here. All we have here are the costs of that very narrow area which the Government have decided is what is defined as "cost". Yet the Government are going to have to accept that pension people in this country will have the cost of making arrangements so that they can do the things they are doing at the moment inside the European Union. This is a cost, but it is not here I know my noble friend is bored with it and thinks that we should let this all pass, but this House is about revision. We have made a mistake with this particular SI. We should recognise that all these SIs need to have at least a formal consultation. There should be a time when people can be asked to put in their concerns; the ability for a Minister to get up and say, "We have had a consultation". I think it is unfair on my noble friend. She can only get up and say, "Well, there has been an informal series of talks".