Torsten Bell did not look a happy Pension Minister when he had to deal with a question about Pre-97 indexation of FAS schemes. You can tell that Terry Monk behind Torsten Bell has slightly less defensive body language and a less contentious expression.

In the audience Michelle Ostermann , Terry Monk and several others interested in member’s interests.

Adamant with arms-crossed Torsten Bell does not enjoy being pressed by his Conservative counterpart Mark Garnier and it is not till he is on to the next subject that we see the Torsten we enjoy.

Here (above) – for those who do not have access to the video (which starts at 17.30 and ends at 17.50 on this link) is just how uncomfortable Torsten is about the pensioners that he has promised to help, but still sees no way to explain how.  There was an angry exchange on this concerning how accounting rules that changed in 2019 (under conservatives) meant it was hard to get tings sorted.

Here (below) is Torsten Bell able to explain where he is on Value for Money arising from implementation of the ideas in the Pension Schemes Bill.

I am glad the direction of travel was to the positive Bell we get when he puts aside his defensive stance over indexation of FAS pension by the PPF.

One of the people who has come out of this day long debate well has been the PPF’s Michelle Ostermann. Much of her worry about UK pensions is that they have de-risked too far and Garnier picked up on this and the complaint by Tim Fassam of Phoenix who complained that the clause 15 of the Bill’s VFM could create “intermediation herding”.  This is where schemes would club together to ensure none of them got the rights to collect AE contributions taken away for not being VFM. This has happened in Australia (we hear).

Bell took this seriously enough (he said) to have TPR and FCA to make sure VFM was graded to make sure this didn’t happen.

Bell was questioned about Helen Forrester’s criticism that the Reserve Power to mandate investment allocation would have perverse outcomes. Bell has clearly been round this subject many times and is showing not wish to change the Bill’s direction, the Reserve Power to mandate looks like remaining, Bell’s chief argument is that the Mansion House compact has not led to collective action  and that the threat of “having to” will ensure that doesn’t go on any more.

As the session drew to an end , Kirsty Blackman, MP for Aberdeen North and clearly a veteran of sorting amendments to big bills complained to Bell that there were 273 amendments lodged against the Pension Schemes Bill of which 30 were new clauses. She complained that they had been put before the General Committee a day before the meeting  which wasn’t fair on it.

Bell’s 20 minutes were over and so was the day. I did not get the impression that Torsten Bell has sufficient time to sit through the witness statements in person and I very much doubt he will be watching the videos as this blogger has.

However, I hope he picks up on the people who has raised points that were raised to him. In truth the paucity of  complaints over the day suggests to me that large parts of the Bill did need debate.

This debate was selective on what was covered from the Pension Schemes Bill

There is a large part of the Bill that dealt with new ways of dealing with pension problems – specifically CDC and Superfunds. As far as I can remember, these were mentioned in passing once all day (PMI + PPP) and I wonder if this means they are getting dropped or that being kicked down the road into distant second legislation. I would like to hear from the Pension Minister if my concern has validity.