Pensions Bill

The Bill is in many respects a reckoning with the future of pensions, but it contains within it the reckoning with the past. We all wish that it did not do so because it would be nice simply to move on to the sunnier uplands of pensions policy to come. However, as several Members have said, the fact is that many people are not able to move on as they have lost their pension. They look to this House to do something about that—legitimately because an Officer of this House, the ombudsman. has conducted an exhaustive inquiry to establish exactly what happened and whether there was any Government role. I must confess that when I started to think about this matter—before I had read the ombudsman report, and before the Public Administration Committee started taking evidence on it and talking to some of the people involved—I took a different view from that which I now hold. I thought, ““Well, the world’s an uncertain place and risky things can happen; pensions are fragile objects and we have to live with such events.? However, the more I examined the subject the less I could sustain that position. After 1994—after Maxwell—we believed that we had put in place a framework of protection that would prevent such things from happening again. The ombudsman was able to show in detail that in terms of what had been said about that framework of protection—the descriptions of the amount of safety that there was in the schemes—there had been maladministration. That is not simply a proposition of mine; it has now been demonstrated. It has been upheld in the High Court, so we know it to be the case. Therefore, we have moved on from that argument. That is not to say that the Government—any Government—are entirely liable for what has happened. That is not true. There is some liability, but the major point is that the only body or person who can organise a remedy and sort out this situation are the Government. The Government have been trying to do so, and we must welcome the fact that we have made huge progress. This is a bit like building a house. Originally, when we began with the financial assistance scheme, the Government erected one wall and said, ““There’s some shelter? and we said, ““But one wall isn’t good enough.? So they added another wall and said, ““There we are; that’s better shelter? and it was better, but we again said, ““It’s not good enough.? After that, in the Budget they added two more walls. We have the surrounding structure of a house now. That is vastly better, but we then said, ““But we still haven’t got the roof on.? The Government have responded by saying, ““No, we haven’t got the roof on, but we know a man who can find the wherewithal to put the roof on.? The Opposition have said in return, ““We can do better than that: we have got a man who can loan us the money to find the man who will put the roof on.? Frankly, I do not care where the roof comes from. Most Members accept that we need the roof on—that we need to reach Pension Protection Fund levels. As has been said, that is a responsibility of the House—of all Members. Let us consider the history of this matter. It started with the last Government. Some of the most offending literature in maladministration terms occurred under the last Government. However, the point about ombudsman investigations and all that flows from them is that responsibility is handed back to the House. When the ombudsman system was put in place exactly 40 years ago, the House sensibly decided not to give the ombudsman the ability to impose remedies. She would have the ability to investigate without any hindrance and operate completely independently and then to report to the House. She can suggest lines of remedy, but not impose them. The responsibility for that comes back to Members. We must decide what is the right thing to do. That is what we are faced with in this context. We did not think that the Government had done enough when they produced one wall, or two walls, or now when they have produced four walls. We still want to talk about putting the roof on. I know that the Opposition and the Government are terrified of public spending, but there are times when we have to say, ““We have an obligation to spend the money to do the right thing—we would like not to spend it, but we have an obligation to do the right thing.? I say to both the Government and the official Opposition that I wish that they were both saying that, because the official Opposition are going to some lengths not to say that—but instead to say that they are not prepared to sign up to propositions that commit them to moving to PPF levels. It would be easier for the House if we could test the proposition of whether we wanted to do that, and then worry about the mechanisms for doing it. The incentive to find mechanisms that work would be greater if we had committed ourselves to the objective. That might be the effect of new clause 41 and associated measures, and that is why I shall support them. Even funny money is better than no money at all, and I am prepared to accept it on that basis—although the Government are entitled to say to the Opposition that it is funny money and that they must answer for that. On the new clause 25 issue—the solvent schemes issue—we know that there is an anomaly. The compensation available applies only in cases where there has been an insolvency event. That has left high and dry about 8,000 people who have been in solvent employer schemes. We all recognise that they are in exactly the same position in terms of the loss of their pension as everybody else and that there are no grounds on which we could possibly want to exclude them. New clause 25 brings their schemes—we seem to agree on the numbers—into the package that is being developed. The Minister is entitled to say that the amendments under discussion were devised over the weekend in a great hurry, but I can assure him that this one was not. A good deal of time and authority has been invested in it in this House. It comes with some good authority behind it. When the Minister says to me that it is technically deficient, my response is that I do not think that it is because it covers exactly the same kind of schemes that are eligible under section 286 of the Pensions Act 2004. It does not in effect say, ““Let’s open the door to any scheme that might want to fold to get some protection.? It is explicitly contained within those parameters. I would be delighted to withdraw the new clause. All I require the Minister to say is that he accepts the spirit of the new clause and, if he thinks that it is technically deficient, he will remedy that down the road. I do not want to be left still not knowing which schemes will be covered and which will not, because that would be profoundly unsatisfactory.