---

Occupational Pensions

My apologies, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Everyone is probably fed up to the back teeth with hearing from me this afternoon. There is a significant problem with taking my hon. Friend’s advice about dropping the requirement to purchase an annuity. If we dropped it, there is clearly the potential for creating problems further on because it is inevitable that the remaining pension schemes would rapidly run out of resources. It is neither fair nor reasonable for us to do that. That is why the requirements are what they are.