Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): I am delighted to welcome Michelle Grills, pension policy lead, and Tommy Boyle and Keira McKeown, deputy principals, pension policy, Department for Communities. Michelle will make an opening statement, and we will then move to questions from members.

Ms Michelle Grills (Department for Communities): Good morning, Chair and Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to attend today to outline the Executive Pension Schemes Bill ahead of its introduction in the Assembly. Across the UK, there is, in effect, a single pension system and regulatory regime. Indeed, many private pension schemes operating in Northern Ireland are UK-wide schemes. The Bill is essential to safeguard the long-term interests of our pension savers and to ensure that we maintain parity with the rest of the UK.

The Bill represents the most significant reform of the pensions landscape in over a decade. Its central purpose is clear: to modernise the system by building larger, more efficient pension funds that can invest more effectively in the UK economy while delivering better outcomes for people in retirement. The Westminster Pension Schemes Bill is expected to receive Royal Assent early in early summer of 2026, with seven of its measures set to be extended to Northern Ireland by way of legislative consent. However, in order to stay fully aligned with the wider reforms and to give savers here the same protections and opportunities as there are elsewhere in the UK, we need to legislate for the remaining relevant provisions through our own Executive Bill. That step is essential to completing the pension reform package and ensuring that Northern Ireland moves forward on the same footing. That is not simply a procedural requirement; it is about fairness, long-term stability and building a pension system that delivers for people here. Our aim is to make sure that savers in Northern Ireland benefit from the same modernisation, safeguards and opportunities for growth that are being advanced across the UK.

With about 90 clauses, the Bill will be substantial, but it centres on nine key provisions, which I will briefly outline. The first is for powers to pay a surplus to an employer. The defined benefit funding position has recently improved significantly, with most schemes now being in surplus. The new measure will allow trustees to amend scheme rules to share surplus funds, which will support business investment and enable negotiations for additional member benefits. Trustees must still act in beneficiaries' interests, and the Pensions (Northern Ireland) Order 1995 will be updated to clarify that duty. The value-for-money measure aims to improve transparency, comparability and competition among defined contribution (DC) pension schemes. It shifts focus from cost to overall value, emphasising long-term returns and investment performance. The creation of "default consolidators" will address the issue of small, fragmented pension pots. Consolidating those smaller pots into larger ones will reduce waste and ensure that people's pots are at lower risk of being lost.

With regard to scale and asset allocation, the Bill will set new scale requirements for defined contribution multi-employer schemes in the automatic enrolment market. By 2030, schemes must have £25 billion in assets in at least one main scale default arrangement. Smaller schemes with £10 billion by 2030 will be able to apply for transitional relief if they have a credible plan to reach £25 billion by 2035. To reduce fragmentation, the Bill will allow regulations to restrict new non-scale defaults and mandate consolidation of existing ones. The guided retirement products measure will provide occupational pension scheme members with solutions to manage their savings as they transition into retirement. By offering guided retirement products, members can keep assets within the scheme longer, supporting long-term investment strategies and, potentially, better returns. This requires the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to set rules ensuring that those solutions are available to members of relevant FCA-regulated pension schemes.

Defined benefit schemes hold around £1·2 trillion in assets across the UK and support about nine million people. Many employers with closed defined benefit schemes, where buyout with insurers is not viable, want options to secure those liabilities and focus on their core business. The Bill will enable such schemes to transfer to regulated commercial providers called superfunds. The Bill will establish a legal framework for superfunds, including authorisation and supervision by the Pensions Regulator, regulatory intervention powers and monitoring of funding and investment thresholds.

The Bill will give the Pension Protection Fund (PPF) board flexibility to reduce the annual levy to zero or to a very low amount when it is not needed, and to increase it later if required. The Bill will abolish the PPF administration levy, which currently covers admin costs for the Pension Protection Fund and the Fraud Compensation Fund. In future, those costs will be funded by the pension protection levy and the fraud compensation levy respectively. The proposed Bill will amend the Pensions (Northern Ireland) Order 2005 to enable members of the Pension Protection Fund and the Financial Assistance Scheme to view details of their compensation or assistance funds on pensions dashboards to allow them to gain a complete picture of their expected retirement income.

The measure for information to be given to pension schemes by employers will introduce a power for the Department for Communities to make regulations requiring employers to provide specified information about jobholders and workers to the trustees, managers or providers of the pension scheme in which the individual is an active member. The aim of the measure is to ensure that schemes hold accurate and up-to-date member data, improving engagement and supporting informed decision-making.

As the Bill confers powers enabling actions to be taken by the Financial Conduct Authority, which is a UK-wide body established under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, accountable to the Treasury and Parliament, Secretary of State consent may be required to confer regulation-making powers on the Treasury. If that is the case, work to secure that consent will commence following discussion with the Office of the Legislative Counsel and the Northern Ireland Office.

The Westminster Pension Schemes Bill is still making its way through Parliament, so we are conscious about not going into too much detail at this point. The Westminster Bill entered a period of ping-pong yesterday, and further amendments are expected. The intention, therefore, is for us to return for Committee Stage when we have the finalised details. We will then be in a position to answer more in-depth questions on the clauses. It is anticipated that the Northern Ireland Bill will follow the usual legislative process. The intention is to introduce our Executive Bill to the Assembly ahead of summer recess upon receipt of a final version of the GB Bill. Subject to timetabling, we are working on the basis that Committee Stage will begin as soon as possible after the summer recess, and the Bill must complete its passage through the Assembly ahead of the conclusion of the current mandate. This legislation is essential to maintain the UK pension system and regulatory regime. It maintains parity with GB, protects savers, supports employers and strengthens the integrity and resilience of our pension scheme for decades to come.

That is a brief overview of the proposed measures. I am happy to take questions based on the information that we currently have. That comes with the caveat that the Bill is still subject to change. As I said, we are committed to coming back to the Committee both formally and informally to give clarity on all the clauses to enable the Committee to complete its scrutiny of the Executive Bill.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): It is a bit of a concern that the Bill started its journey across the water in June 2025, so it is almost a year at this stage, and it has entered a period of ping-pong, which could further delay it. Also, it has 90 clauses. How much time does the Department anticipate that Committee Stage will require in order to undertake robust scrutiny across the 90 clauses of the Bill, given that we have barely a year left until the end of the mandate?

Ms Grills: The plan is to introduce the Bill in May or June of this year and to move to Committee Stage as soon as possible after summer recess. The Committee normally looks for around three months' scrutiny of a Bill, and we have built that in and hope to provide that time.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): I do not think that it will be in any way possible to scrutinise that many clauses in three months, to be honest with you, because there is a 12-week consultation process alone. Clerk, is that right?

The Committee Clerk: Usually, although the Committee can decide to amend that. However, the Committee has previously agreed that it would prefer to stick to three months, if possible.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): OK. That remains an issue and becomes a greater issue the longer the Bill takes to get to us. Obviously, we all have to battle with that.

What, if any, specific provisions in the Bill from across the water are not being brought in here, and why, or are all the clauses being brought in? Again, I understand that there is a wee bit of uncertainty, but, at this point, are there clauses that you do not intend to put in the Bill here that are in place across the water?

Ms Grills: As I said, seven measures are covered by the legislative consent motion. Those will be done on our behalf. Other than that, there are, I think, only two measures that are not included, which are the local government pension scheme, which covers England and Wales and is therefore not relevant here, and the Atomic Weapons Establishment pension scheme, which, again, is not relevant to Northern Ireland. We are including in the Bill everything that is of relevance to Northern Ireland.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): OK. I have a final one for now before I go to members. The power to amend scheme rules to share surplus funds is to share funds with employers, with the caveat that trustees must act in the interest of scheme members. What is to prevent any surplus being used up in, for example, administration costs? Should it not be the case that any surplus goes entirely to beneficiaries?

Ms Grills: That is being left up to trustees, because they have the best knowledge of the schemes. It is up to them to decide how that will work. Obviously, they will have to act in the best interests of their members, so they will try to get the money for them as best they can, but there may be some cases in which benefits go to employers. Trustees can negotiate, so they may be able to get extra benefits for their members by doing that.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): Yes, but if we are designing the Bill, why are we leaving that so open to interpretation rather than making it more clear how any surplus should be dealt with? There may be a perfectly good reason, but it seems a bit strange to give the surplus from a scheme that members have paid into to the employer first.

Ms Grills: Employers have no direct access to the surplus. It is up to the trustees, who know the schemes better than anyone and know the needs of their members, to make the right decisions on that.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): Where else might it go, if it does not go directly to employees who have paid in? Where else might a surplus go in a case like that?

Ms Grills: Money could go to the employer, but, as I said, the trustees can negotiate and say, "If the money goes to you, we want higher wages", or whatever it might be. It is up to the trustees to use it in the best possible way for their members.

Mr Tommy Boyle (Department for Communities): This measure relates to defined benefit pension schemes, where the amount that a member gets in retirement is set. For those schemes, the surplus is exactly that: a surplus. It is money that is deemed not to be needed in order to pay members what they should get when they retire. That does not take away the opportunity for negotiation to take place to increase those benefits, if there is enough surplus. But it is not like a defined contribution scheme, whereby the more money that is there, the more that is paid out to members. When a person starts their employment, they know what they will get if they continue to make the contributions throughout their time in that employment, if that makes sense.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): I get that. We will look at it in more detail as time goes on. I am conscious that, in schemes like this, you will always see it stated that investments can go up or down in value. There is a fear that, when they go down, that always gets rolled out, but, if they go up, in this scheme, it may be a wee bit less certain as to who benefits from it if the scheme does better than originally intended. However, I get that, in a defined benefit scheme, there is some protection from the investment going down.

Mr Boyle: The indication is that these decisions will be taken with that in mind in order to ensure the future. They will not be making decisions now that mean there is not enough money in the future. There will be safeguards in place, and trustees will be expected to ensure that the decisions are robust and fair.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): OK. Thank you. I have a few more questions, but Committee members may pick up on them, so I will leave them for now.

Ms K Armstrong: I will follow up on the Chair's questions about the powers to pay surplus to employers. The key in this is the trustees, and I have not so far seen anything that defines exactly who can be a trustee. For example, if it is only the owners of the business and there is an opportunity to spend surplus in the business, then they would probably take that opportunity. From our point of view, I share the Chair's concern that this should not be used to pay shareholders. If it is invested in the business, that is fine, so long as it is for the benefit of the recipients of the pension. Are you aware yet of any definition of "trustees", including who they can be, what the protections are for pension holders or what protections could be built into this legislation for the pension holders?

Ms Keira McKeown (Department for Communities): The term "trustees" is defined in previous pensions legislation, although I cannot remember exactly where, off the top of my head. I can get that information for you. I am trying to remember whether a definition is included again in this legislation. Again, I cannot remember, off the top of my head, whether "trustees" is defined in this legislation, but it is a defined term in pensions legislation.

Ms K Armstrong: I know it is early, because we need to see the full Bill before we can see all the clauses, but I was just wondering whether the definition of "trustees" from previous legislation will be referenced in the Bill.

The other thing I am going to ask about is the small pots. Your paper states:

We have talked about that in the Committee before. Is that amalgamation optional, or, from what you have learned so far from Westminster, will it be mandatory?

Ms Grills: It is optional to the person. They can decide whether to go with it, to opt out or to choose a different consolidator if they do not like the one that is proposed.

Ms K Armstrong: I was just wondering about that. How many businesses in Northern Ireland do we know of that will fall into the scale and asset allocation because of having assets of over £25 billion?

Ms Grills: We expect that to be a very small number. The issue is that, apart from in the defined benefits space, there are very few, if any, Northern Ireland-specific schemes. Most of them are UK-wide. Overall, across the UK, it is expected that this will reduce the number of schemes to 15 or 20 very large schemes.

Ms K Armstrong: OK. I am interested in that because we are a country of SMEs — small to medium-sized enterprises — and their pension pots — unless they use one of the big UK-wide pension schemes, although I do not want to name any names.

What representation does Northern Ireland have on the Pension Protection Fund levy board? Is anybody from Northern Ireland on that board?

Ms Grills: Goodness, I am not sure about the board. It is a UK-wide body, but I am not sure about the actual membership of the actual board.

Ms K Armstrong: I am not sure how Northern Ireland contributes to those levies. Do the pension pots pay towards that? How does that work?

Mr Boyle: Pension providers pay those levies.

Ms K Armstrong: OK. My final question would have been about when you are hoping to introduce the Bill, because I am worried about the consultation period. It is quite a technical Bill, and I would be worried about doing a Committee consultation over the summer, because, to be honest, I imagine that people will not understand every nuance of each clause. I will certainly have a hard time with that.

Mr Boyle: We are certainly open to that. We will meet as regularly as you see fit, whether that is face to face or online. We will meet as regularly as we can in order to facilitate the Committee in getting as much opportunity as possible to scrutinise and to try to help the process along. We understand that time is really tight. If the Committee decides to extend the deadline, that is entirely your prerogative. We will work with whatever works for you, but there is a necessity to get it over the line. That is our concern.

Ms K Armstrong: I note that, basically, this needs to be progressed in parity with Westminster. I am just concerned that we might run out of time. We are expecting a load of Bills to hit us, so the sooner, the better. Thank you.

Mr McHugh: Tá fáilte romhaibh uilig.

I am not looking forward to scrutinising 90 clauses. It is difficult enough for me to get my head around the proposed legislation. I am sure that it is difficult for you as well.

Can you set out in greater detail the value-for-money measure in the Bill and how it will impact on scheme members?

Ms McKeown: Instead of prescribing a framework, the Bill gives the Department power to create regulations that will allow regulators to require trustees to assess whether their scheme delivers good value, such as by looking at how well investments perform, what members are charged and how good the service is. The detailed rules on how to do that, such as by comparing schemes or using benchmarks that are set by regulators, will be written later in secondary legislation. Those powers apply to all types of DC pension schemes, including master trust and hybrid schemes, so that everyone follows the same standards and that schemes are held responsible for providing good value to their members. Most future retirees rely on DC pensions. Where investment performance determines outcome, even small improvements in investment performance can compound significantly over time. By encouraging scheme consolidation and requiring better investment returns, the Bill aims to improve retirement outcomes significantly. We do not have exact figures or anything like that at this stage, but it is considered to be a positive aspect of the Bill.

Mr McHugh: Maith thú.

The Bill contains provisions on superfunds. Can you explain what superfunds are?

Mr Boyle: Superfunds are not like superheroes. [Laughter.]

Superfunds are designed to prevent schemes from slowly drifting towards administration or default and members ending up being paid via the PPF rather than their full benefit from their pension scheme. Again, we do not have all the detail at the minute, but the proposal is that that option will be available as a stopgap when a scheme is heading towards default. When a scheme is heading towards default, the first option is always, if it has enough funds at the time, to buy out the pension and offload it into a more secure pension. If, however, it does not have the funds to do that, a superfund will provide something that the pension scheme can be adopted into, with all existing assets going with it, and then investors get the opportunity to invest that money. The money is therefore used, and the scheme becomes a more secure option to try to prevent it from being paid via the PPF.

It seems as though, in most cases, that will ensure that members of such pension schemes get the full benefit of their pension scheme and will not know any different. It will be completely seamless for them. It will not cost any more, and their benefits will be the same, as they will be ring-fenced within the superfund. A superfund is not one huge pension pot that everyone is throwing into and out of which everyone gets the same. Rather, the terms of members' pensions are protected within it. They are brought into that fold and given investment security, but the terms of their pension will remain unchanged.

Mr McHugh: Are you saying that, in the event of the superfund's running into difficulty, the risk to scheme members is limited?

Mr Boyle: The superfund should not really run into difficulty, because it will be maintained with government assistance and the like. It will be set up with robust measures in place. Where pension schemes are heading towards failure, it is the safety net in between so that members do not drift straight into the PPF. The Pension Protection Fund is there to protect members, but it will not give them the full benefit of their pension. It is not a pension scheme. Rather, it is a compensation payment. It is therefore not treated in the same way. The superfund is something in between that will ensure that, at the very least, members get their full pension benefit for a period. If the superfund is in such a bad state that it cannot be sustained in the long term, the pension scheme may at some point drift into the PPF, but that happening will have been delayed. The hope is that that will never happen and that the superfund will provide protection for those funds. It is something that pension schemes can drop into and then be maintained, thus ensuring that members get the full benefit of their pension.

Mr McHugh: Go raibh míle maith agat.

Ms Mulholland: Do we have any up-to-date figures for Northern Ireland on the proportion of pension schemes that are defined benefit schemes as opposed to defined contribution schemes and on the uptake of pensions?

Ms Grills: It is difficult to get Northern Ireland-specific figures — that is the issue — because, as I said, most schemes operate UK-wide. A lot of the figures that we have are for the UK, because that information is not available for here. There are very few Northern Ireland-specific schemes.

Ms Mulholland: I would value our having informal evidence sessions on the Bill. Having them could be really useful, because the Bill is technical in nature.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): I will pick up on Sian's point, because we come across it regularly. Is it not a simple matter of picking up on postcode information in order to take out of the system the data that relates specifically to here and, if necessary, adding a line to the spreadsheet to allow us to get the information? It is unsatisfactory that we constantly have to guess what the figures are for here. Does generating that information from the Department for Work and Pensions not involve a relatively simple technological add-on?

Ms Grills: Based on what I know, I am not sure that it is as simple as that. Information on Northern Ireland residents in the UK-wide schemes is not easily separated out.

Mr Boyle: The pensions dashboards might provide some clarity on that in future, but, at the moment, we are looking at private pension schemes, which are personal to the individual, and the measures involve changes to schemes rather than to individual members' pensions. Scheme members could be resident in Northern Ireland but have worked all their life somewhere else in the United Kingdom and therefore be registered with a Scotland-, Wales- or England-based pension scheme.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): They could be, so there would be a margin of error involved, but the majority of people will have a BT postcode, and one would think that that data could be —.

Mr Boyle: They will, but there are not an awful lot of Northern Ireland-only pension schemes. The vast majority of workers in Northern Ireland are likely to be registered with a pension scheme that is based elsewhere in the UK.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): I get that, Tommy, but one would think that we could identify how many people from here are registered with UK schemes. Although the issue is not specific to your briefing, it is a bugbear of mine, because there is bound to be a better and more relatively straightforward way in which to get that information. That will continue to create work for us, I suppose.

Mrs Mason: I will pick up on a couple of issues. One of a few issues that has been flagged to me is that of timescale. We talk regularly in the Committee about how the amount of legislation that is coming down the line means that time is tight. I ask this more for my own knowledge, but, given that the Westminster Bill was introduced in June 2025, why are we at this stage only now? It is a parity Bill, so why are we talking about it only now?

Ms Grills: The Westminster Bill has not yet been passed into law. That has been the issue for us, things have been held up. We are working in the background, doing as much as we can. The drafting of our Bill has started, but we cannot finalise it until we have the final version of the GB Bill. That has been the reason for the delay.

Mrs Mason: We are waiting on the final version of the Bill in Britain.

Mr Boyle: We have to, because, at the moment, we have nothing to replicate.

Mrs Mason: If that continues to be the case, we therefore have no clarity on whether the Bill will be introduced in the Assembly before the summer. It could end up being introduced after the summer recess.

Ms Grills: We hope that that will not be the case. We have regular contact with DWP, and it assures us that it is looking to wrap up the legislative process in Westminster as soon as possible. We cannot guarantee that it will happen, but the hope is that the Executive pension schemes Bill will be introduced here before the summer.

Mrs Mason: You mentioned that you are working closely with DWP, and you said that the "period of ping-pong" on the Bill over there had started. Have any areas of concern been raised with you at which we should be proactively looking? Has anything major been flagged from the consultation and in the scrutiny at Westminster that we should be looking at here?

Ms Grills: The big issue that has been raised at Westminster is the mandating power. That was taken out of the Bill in the House of Lords, but I think that it has subsequently gone back in. We are waiting to see how that works out. It is a reserve power to enable the Government to dictate how a certain portion of pension assets is invested. There was the Mansion House Accord — a voluntary, industry-led agreement — in which 17 of the biggest pension providers in the UK agreed to put 10% of their assets into private equity, with half of that being in the UK. The hope is that that power will not be used. It is in there as a backstop. When pension providers are investing in private markets, the upfront cost is higher, even though the rewards are better. That is the issue. There is a fear about who is going to take the first step, because they are afraid of losing out to their competitors if they pay the upfront price first, so the power is in the Bill in the background to say, "It's OK to do this. This is the direction that we're all going in". The mandating power has been a wee bit controversial, however. It is probably generating the most debate in Westminster at the moment.

Mrs Mason: Who holds the power to say, "No, this is —"?

Ms Grills: The Government have the power, as I said, to dictate how a small proportion of the assets is invested.

Mrs Mason: OK. That is something on which we will have to keep a close eye.

A couple of members raised an issue about the data. There seems to be a huge gap. If we are doing our own pension schemes Bill here but do not have any of our own data to look at, how do we ensure that the legislation is a fit for here? Is there scope in the Bill to look at doing something about data?

Ms Grills: I am not sure how that could be done. I do not think that it is quite as simple as —.

Ms McKeown: We asked the Pensions Regulator previously about getting Northern Ireland-specific data. It could not think of how it could do that.

Mrs Mason: It seems crazy that —.

Ms McKeown: It does.

Mrs Mason: I know that there are anomalies, but it would be good even to have an understanding of those anomalies.

Ms McKeown: Yes. The regulator holds details about pension schemes, including on how many members are in schemes, but, to the best of my knowledge, the information does not specify where the members of those schemes live. You would need to go to pension scheme providers themselves to get them to give you a breakdown of who lives where. There are the big schemes — I am a bit like you, in that I do not want to start naming any in particular — that are UK-wide. A big employer such as Tesco will have the one pension scheme, with members all over the UK. You would therefore have to ask its pension scheme provider to ask how many of its members are based here and how many are based in the rest of the UK. That is not information that the regulator holds, and that is the difficulty with getting Northern Ireland-specific data.

Ms K Armstrong: Perhaps I can help clarify the situation, because I bounced around so many different jobs before I came to this place. My employer is now the Assembly, but my other pensions are now in one pot in a UK-wide pension. In order to get data on the number of people in Northern Ireland who have a pension with Standard Life, you would have to go to Standard Life and ask it for a breakdown of all its customers. It is not employers but schemes that would have to provide that information. Data sharing is going to be a problem in that regard. Until I amalgamated mine, I had 12 different pension pots. Tiny bits all came together.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): Will the information on the dashboards be specific to here?

Ms McKeown: The dashboards will hold all a member's data and amalgamate everything. I do not know off the top of my head what information we will be able to pull from the dashboards at a later stage. I can look into that before we next come to the Committee. I do not know whether we will be able to pull more specific information from the dashboards.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): We raised the matter previously with Cherrie Arnold from the Department. One reason that was given was that making tweaks would cost money. It is very hard to create good public policy and legislation in the absence of data, especially if you are trying to backwards-extrapolate it.

Ms McKeown: There are regulatory impact assessments to come for the majority of the measures. Where possible, I am trying to see whether I can find any NI-specific data that we can use. From my reading, I have not found anything to do, but it is a consideration. Where I can, I will try to get you specific data for Northern Ireland.

Ms Mulholland: That has illuminated the fact that there is a gap in the information that is at hand when we try to create public policy. That is not specific to pensions: Northern Ireland-specific data is not available across the board. We see that all the time with DWP as well. We are a very specific region, in that some of the experience here is very different. I wonder whether it would be possible to look at whether pensions schemes could be mandated to report for a region, rather than for a postcode area. That may be something that the Government will consider, although I do not know whether doing that is in any way possible. The other consideration is whether data could be extrapolated from private pension dashboards.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): We are almost there with the evidence session, but I have a quick question on amalgamating small pots to create larger pots. What are the benefits of doing that, and what are the potential risks for scheme members from the amalgamation process?

Ms Grills: The good thing is that the consolidators will need to meet a strict set of criteria for value for money, fees and scale and that the regulators will provide ongoing supervision. At the moment, the small pots are dormant. They are not taking in anything else, and they incur fees, but only on pots of up to £1,000 at this point. Someone who has lots of little pots of £1,000 will incur fees on each pot. Given that the money would be spread out, they might not even realise what pots they have, so they could be lost. By putting all of the little pots into one larger pot, however, fees are reduced, and everything is together. It is therefore a better way in which to invest money.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): Does it remain an individual choice for a pension holder whether to do that?

Ms Grills: Yes.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): Who oversees the process? Is there a local oversight body to oversee the process?

Ms Grills: The Pensions Regulator oversees it. That is a UK-wide body, so it does that on behalf of Northern Ireland.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): That goes back to Kellie's point about levies. It is important that we have local representation. Does the Pensions Regulator have local representation?

Ms Grills: I would have to find that out. It is a UK-wide body, but I am not sure who is employed by it.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): OK.

Ms K Armstrong: On that, Chair, I am interested in finding out about a scenario in which someone has a pension that is outside Northern Ireland but not in the rest of the UK. I am talking about someone who, say, had worked in the South and had a pension there but who wanted to amalgamate that pension with a UK-based pensions scheme. It is about making sure that there are no difficulties for somebody who needs or wants to do that. People take their own pensions advice, I know, but it is about making sure that that is covered in the Bill, because, although there are people from other places in the UK who work in, say, France or Spain, we have more people working in a different jurisdiction — Ireland — who may wish to move their UK pension into their Irish pension or their Irish pension into their UK pension. It is therefore about making sure that there are those protections.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): Will any delegated legislation come from the Bill?

Ms Grills: Yes.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): Will we get a delegated powers memorandum?

Ms Grills: Yes.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): OK. That about covers it for now, but I will say something about whether the Committee will choose to extend the Bill's Committee Stage. I think that, in reality, the Committee will absolutely have to do so. That will not be by choice, given the summer recess and the consultation period. In fact, I do not think there has ever been a Committee Stage that has not been extended. Indeed, the Assembly Commission is doing work on that.

I therefore want the Department to bear that in mind. Given that we can already see some of the complexity that will be involved in our scrutiny, and given the scale of the Bill, it will be a big job of work. I have to say that managing that work and getting the Bill passed in this mandate remains a concern for the Committee. I know that part of that is beyond your power at this time, given that the Westminster Bill has yet to be passed. We will have to keep an eye on developments.

No one else has any further questions, so thank you very much for briefing us.

Ms Grills: Thank you.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): We will talk further about the potential for having informal sessions, because we would welcome them.