Pensions Bill

Following the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, I am moved, first, to ask for confirmation that the people who went into these schemes did so not on the basis of a recommendation but because it was a condition of employment. Therefore, they had absolutely no option. Secondly, many of the problems that arose from this mis-selling of pensions—no, not mis-selling; from this situation—resulted from these companies being taken over by other companies and raids on these pension funds. But the Government have not gone after them. We said to people in employment, ““You have to take an occupational pension””. However, successive Governments have managed to get away with paying—and I use the term advisedly—a state pension that is a pittance compared with those of other European countries while knowing that occupational pensions were there as a back-up. They probably genuinely thought that there would not be much hardship. However, when things went wrong and these companies were taken over by absolute pirates—another term which I use advisedly; I know some of them, and have discussed them previously with the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott—nothing was done about it. Now we rightly want a lifeboat. These people were forced into occupational pensions and expected a proper income in retirement. They have based alltheir life choices—where they live, saving for their children’s university education and so on—on these pensions, but all of that has vanished like snow in summer. So it is essential that there is a lifeboat. However, I take issue with the funding of the lifeboat. I believe that the Government are responsible for that because of the point that I made. I do not think that the so-called unclaimed assets should be used because there are different types of unclaimed assets. There are unclaimed assets in banking, although I leave those to one side because a case could be made for that. There are also unclaimed assets in insurance companies, which are used to fund people on very low occupational pensions who get the state pension plus a little bit. Why should the Government again use the excuse that those people will get a little bit through these unclaimed assets and say, ““Not my problem””? It is their problem. I am not really equipped to give the ins and outs of insurance companies’ unclaimed assets, but as a question of social justice and fairness—this is the issue that we are dealing with—there is no excuse for the Government not to find the money. Goodness knows how many billions of pounds of public expenditure are wasted. The Government should take a proper look at public expenditure and fund the lifeboat from it, which would satisfy both situations.