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Mr. Webb: It is not quite the same thing. Mr. Waterson: I am not suggesting that, nor that we turn the Bill into some sort of religious movement. However, I think that the chairman and chief executive should work together, with the sort of people with whom they will be comfortable working, who will add value to their role. That is not to say that we would completely take away the role of the Secretary of State. As amendment No. 104 says, the appointment of the chairman should be
If someone wholly inappropriate were appointed to any of these jobs, the Secretary of State should certainly have a role. However, at the end of the day, my view is that the regulator should be master in its own house. There is a separate point in amendment No. 120, which would withdraw the words Column Number: 019
from the Bill. That magic little phrase comes up quite often, and the Committee should wish to discourage it. We are certainly trying to discourage political interference from the Department responsible for the legislation; why should we encourage interference from the Treasury? In different parts of the Bill, we will try to strike out the words ''with the approval of the Treasury'', and I hope that it will be useful if at this stage, I explain precisely why. Amendment No. 105 would take out subsection (3), which was a puzzle to us. It states:
I do not know whether that is a good thing or not, but I have tabled a typically probing amendment—although with a majority such as the Government's, every amendment is really a probing amendment—to find out the thinking behind it. Why should it necessarily be a good thing to have members of the regulator's staff among the other people? Subsidiary to that, does the provision have to be spelled out so rigidly? An alternative would be to table an amendment stating that the staff of the regulator would not be disqualified; if someone were clearly the right person, they could be appointed. I only throw the idea out; I have no intention of pressing this amendment, or any of this group, to a Division. However, I would be interested to hear the reasoning behind subsection (3). Amendment No. 106 concerns a different issue. It would add a new subsection at the end of clause 2:
The National Association of Pension Funds raised the point that amendment No. 106 addresses. It is rightly concerned that in its operations the regulator—and other bodies, including, or perhaps especially, the PPF—should have in mind the needs and problems of the industry, such as excessive regulation and the invasive regulatory concern that I mentioned earlier, and the cost, which it will ultimately bear, of the various layers of supervision and regulation. Therefore, I propose that at least one of the non-executive members of the regulator should be a representative of an occupational pension scheme covered by the Bill. Who else has a more immediate and day-to-day appreciation of the role of the regulator vis-à-vis the industry? I would be a surprised if there were a serious objection to that. It would be interesting to learn what argument the Minister could have against that. Adam Price (East Carmarthen and Dinefwr) (PC): When the hon. Gentleman talks about a representative, does he mean a representative of the members of the scheme, the sponsoring employer or the trustees of the scheme? The TUC has called for a members' representative to be included in the new regulator. Column Number: 020 Mr. Waterson: Yes, I noticed that in the TUC briefing. I am entirely agnostic about this. The representative could be a member of any of those three groups; he or she need only be someone involved with a scheme whose day-to-day operation would be intimately affected by the Bill. I suspect that that would usually be a trustee or a representative of the sponsoring employer, but I have not spelt that out in the amendment and I do not see why it is necessary to do so. Amendment No. 107 is intended to clarify matters. It proposes to leave out paragraph 3 of schedule 1, which states:
We could not work out what that was getting at. Is there a regulation somewhere else—perhaps in another piece of legislation—that I have failed to pick up that would bar people from standing again after serving for a certain period? What sort of situation is that paragraph meant to cover? This is a probing amendment; we are not wedded to it—but I would be interested to hear the Minister's comments on the subject. Amendment No. 110 raises a similar point. Paragraph 6 refers to matters such as non-executive members ceasing to be members otherwise than on the expiry of their term of office. What kind of situation is envisaged there? Is it illness? I suppose it is not death, unless the compensation is to be payable to people's families. If the Minister were to talk us through what kind of situation he has in mind I am sure that we would be content. Amendment No. 111 would delete the reference to ''additional staff'' being
We are not necessarily set against that, but to question it is part of the business of insulating the new regulatory set-up from Government—from any Government. Governments have a habit of interfering, and none more so than this one. What is envisaged here? Is it seconding people with particular skills on a short-term basis, or on a long-term basis? We would like to know whether wholesale shifts of officials from the Department to the regulator are envisaged. I have dealt with amendment No. 113, which makes the point about approval. Amendment No. 112 makes the same point—it is about additional staff. I have dealt with amendment No. 114 as well as amendment No. 115 and so on. Unless someone is prepared to challenge me, I think that I have dealt with all the amendments. I hope that it is clear what we are trying to achieve, which, in some cases, is merely to draw out information from the Minister.
10.30 amJohn Robertson (Glasgow, Anniesland) (Lab): On a point of order, Mr. Griffiths. In view of the coverage that the clause has already had, will you be allowing a clause stand part debate, or will that be part of the discussion on the amendments? Column Number: 021 The Chairman: That will depend upon how the debate on the amendments ensues. If there is a wide-ranging debate, we will not need a clause stand part debate, but if the debate is relatively brief, we can have one. Mr. Waterson: Further to that point of order, Mr. Griffiths. It was a helpful point to raise this early in our proceedings. I know that it is not my decision—far from it—but it might be helpful for you and your co-Chairman if I say that our broad approach throughout our discussions will be that when we have detailed debates on a series of amendments, Conservative Members will not seek a stand part debate unless there is a particular reason for doing so—and in that case, I would flag the fact up at the start of my remarks on the amendments, leaving the decision, as always, up to the Chair. Mr. Webb: I am intrigued that the amendments seek to set the regulator more at arm's length from the Secretary of State. I cannot help reflecting that yesterday in the House, a Minister was trying to put the regulator as much at arm's length as possible, so as to evade any responsibility. If I may say so without any disrespect, I would have thought that we wanted the Secretary of State's mucky paws all over the regulator so that he or she is accountable for its failings—or, we hope, its successes—and for the Bill's failure or success in achieving its aims. I am not sure that we want to reduce the Secretary of State's power of appointment to the regulator, and thereby distance it and make it so independent that, as with many of those bodies, it is hard to lay a finger on it because it is nothing to do with the Government. While I understand the points that the hon. Gentleman has made, I do not feel sympathetic to such amendments. However, I do have some sympathy with amendment No. 106, which is about representatives of the scheme being part of the regulator. The hon. Member for East Carmarthen and Dinefwr raised the important question of what we mean by a representative. Clearly, people subject to the PPF levy have an interest, but presumably they might legitimately be on the board of the PPF rather than on the regulator. Immediately we start to see the overlap between those two bodies. I do not mean that the representative needs to be an employer just because employers are levied—that is the reference in amendment no. 106—but rather that there should be some sort of representative of a scheme, to give that perspective. I suspect that that representative might need to be an employer, because of the nature of what the regulator does. However, it would be helpful to get the Minister's response to the idea of a worker representative as well. One of the problems with regulation in the past has been that the regulator has known what was going on, but the members of the scheme have not. If the members had known what the regulator knew, they might have stopped contributing to a scheme. Therefore, the amendment raises a strong question about how the new system will ensure that members of schemes have access to the information that the regulator has collected. I do not think that that will Column Number: 022 be achieved by having a token worker on the board. There may be a case for that, but it will not achieve the objective that I have just described. I hope that the Minister will tell us what would achieve it.It seems sensible to raise one other query, as we are discussing amendments to clause 2. Subsection (1) says:
It does not say ''the board of the regulator'' is to consist of the following members, and I do not quite understand the choice of that language. The PPF has a board, and later, the Bill refers to membership of the board of the PPF, but not about membership of the board of the regulator. As I understand it, subsection (1) says that the regulator ''is'' those seven people. I do not follow that. It may be related to the idea of its being a body corporate, as is stated in clause 1. Can the Minister explain the language of the clause? I have some sympathy with the need for representation, but I am less convinced about the need to distance it from the Secretary of State. We want him to be responsible for the success of the regulator.
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