Pensions Bill

This is an extremely important debate. We have heard two excellent speeches, from the hon. Member for Cardiff, North (Julie Morgan) and the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond). We have also heard some useful points from the Minister, albeit in a slightly more partisan tone than we are used to from him. In his opening speech, he commented on what he claimed was a pattern of behaviour by the Conservatives on this issue. As that is not the major issue that we are debating today, I shall comment not on that but on the pattern of behaviour over the past three years or more by the Government. That behaviour pattern was illustrated extremely well by the hon. Member for Cardiff, North, when she described the process undertaken over the past three years as ““tortuous?. That is precisely what it has been. We know that we ended up with the financial assistance scheme in the first place only because of the determination of Labour Members and others in the House to insist on it when the Pensions Bill went through in 2004. We were then told by the Government that that was the only concession that they could make. Further improvements were then made to the financial assistance scheme and, earlier this year, it was announced that the level of compensation would be increased yet again. Instead of bringing the matter to a conclusion once and for all, in the interests of those individuals who have lost their pensions, the Government have embarked on the tortuous process described by the hon. Lady. It has not satisfied the pensioners who have lost their pensions, it has not brought the matter to a conclusion, and it has led to a series of very critical reports on the Government—first from the parliamentary ombudsman, then from the cross-party Public Administration Committee, then from the European Court of Justice and then from the judicial review group. Sadly, it is only through that process of criticism of the Government that we have managed to proceed to a settlement considerably better than that first envisaged in 2004-05. I do not really know why we in the Opposition are so intent on helping the Government out of their position. Let me say in the most partisan possible terms that what the Government have succeeded in doing over the past three years almost constitutes a master class in how to extract the least possible credit from the largest possible number of concessions. I spoke earlier about the implementation of the financial assistance scheme and the two substantial increases that we have seen. Another concession has been made today—a helpful concession, I think, although we do not yet understand all the parameters—in new clause 25, which allows the inclusion of solvent schemes. But does any Member, including the Minister, seriously believe that we have seen all the concessions that we will see from the Government? As the hon. Member for Cardiff, North suggested, they may be forced to make more concessions through the legal process; moreover, those in another place will have to scrutinise the Bill, and given the cross-party nature of what we are debating today, I strongly suspect that they will insist on changes. The Government have spoken of the unions’ aspiration in relation to the Pension Protection Fund. It is unclear whether they share that aspiration, but amendments tabled by the Leader of the Conservative party, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) and others contain many proposals that the Government say they are considering in any case. It seems pretty plain that—either through the Government’s being forced to make more concessions, or as a result of policies that they have already put on record—we will end up more or less where those amendments would take us. Why, for goodness sake, do the Minister and the Government not do what now seems inevitable? Why do they not deliver for the pensioners—many, as we have heard, in a very vulnerable position—who are waiting for the compensation that is due to them? Having initially been told by the Government that no compensation was possible, over the past three years they have witnessed the tortuous process of the Government’s conceding more and more without bringing the matter to a conclusion. Labour Members and others in the House would do a service to the Government as well as to pensioners if they were to bring it to a conclusion today, and not allow it to be dragged out any longer.