Dr. Barra Roantree:

Yes. The risks the Chair outlined are worth taking seriously. It is very difficult to say the magnitude of how big the issue would be, that is something that is hard to know. However I think it is worth taking seriously and thinking carefully about it. Given that these changes in terms of the tax relief and having potential limitations on portability are not necessary to achieve the policy aim, that is why I would be very cautious about making those changes and would rather look at other ways of achieving the same aim.

In terms of portability one thing that is worth adding to that is that we are thinking about a group who we know do not pay particularly much attention to their financial affairs. That is why we want to default them into the pension system. Do we really want to be in a position whereby if they move around different employers, they end up having multiple different schemes? That is a real issue. There is the portability issue and because of that issue do we want someone when they get to retirement to have three, four or five different schemes? If that is something the lack of portability exacerbates the risk of, I take that issue quite seriously. We do not want someone who has not paid much attention to their financial affairs over time coming to retirement and then having to go around five different providers. I have done a PhD in economics and I am already dreading having to go to two, and from my time in the UK having to go to get the details from that one and bring it over. Trying to minimise the amount of complexity there is important and a good aim. From the point of view of what the Chair set out it is worth thinking about those things seriously. I do not think there is anything concrete we can say about how big an issue or what the magnitude of that issue would be.