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Mr. Drew:
The hon. Gentleman will know that I am about to raise the issue of Lister-Petter, whose employees he shares. The decision may not be taken by the employer. Where there is an administrator, it may be the administrator who takes the decision on the pension fund. If there is no suitor willing to come in and take over the company, including taking over the pension fund, an insolvent pension fund will have to be closed. I shall seek clarification from those on my Front Bench, but I should be interested to hear the hon. Gentleman's views on that circumstance. It could be doubly unfair to the work force, who could be losing their jobs, as well as their pensions.
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Mr. Webb: That has always been the infamous double whammy that people suffer in such cases. They lose their job and, to add insult to injury, they lose their pension as well. The position of solvent employers, parent companies, sub-companies and so on needs looking at. If the Minister can assure us that the Government do not intend to put the solvent employer cases into the present financial assistance scheme but they have other plans to right that injustice, we will not pursue amendment (b) either. In other words, we believe that people who work for solvent employers have suffered a real injustice and it needs tackling. If the Government think there are good reasons why that cannot be done through this scheme but they have plans to do something about it through some other mechanism, that will offer us the reassurance that we seek.
Amendment (c) is critical and comes to the heart of the issue. It states that the level of compensation that people get should match what people will get next year through the pension protection fund. We must remember that that is not full compensation. There are many, Dr. Ros Altmann among them, who say that we are being too soft and that 90 per cent. is not enough—it is a case of injustice and theft, and the figure should be 100 per cent.
We are not going that far. We are asking, "Why should someone who loses out because their employer became insolvent on 31 March next year get perhaps substantially less than 90 per cent. of their pension, while someone who loses out on 1 April gets 90 per cent?" Why should there be that arbitrary distinction? The Minister seemed to say it was because the employer had paid into the levy—into the fund. Where is the case in justice and morality for that distinction? Those are people who have saved all their lives, who have done what they were told, and who have lost out. It is not acceptable that those workers should get less than the amount they would get under the pension protection fund.
The worry is that the figure may be not just a little less than 90 per cent. If the figure of £400 million, compared with £2 billion or something of that order, is right, we could be talking about only half pensions or one third pensions. That would be unacceptable, so we feel particularly strongly about amendment (c), which specifies the level of benefits. The workers over the road and the ASW workers who were celebrating on the television news thought they would get most of their pensions back. It would be a cruel deception. All the way through, the Government have spoken of not creating false hope. It would indeed be creating false hope if workers thought last Friday that they would get their pension pretty much covered, and if it turned out that they would get only half or thereabouts of their pension covered.
Andrew Selous: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Webb: I will not, as I shall try to conclude.
There is a real urgency to the issue. I am told that there are already ASW widows. Members of the ASW scheme have, sadly, died and the widows still do not know what widows' pension they will get. That needs to be sorted out soon. We need clarity. We need these matters to be resolved urgently.
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Because we consider the issue to be a matter of justice, I conclude with some words from Andrew Parr, who has been one of the leading figures in the Pensions Action Group. I tried to get his permission to quote him, but I was not able to speak to him today. I am sure he will forgive me for quoting him. Having seen the Government's new clause 34, he said:
"Our aim is not to discriminate between groups. Every affected person should have full restoration of their pension entitlements regardless of company, regardless of date of joining the scheme, regardless of the reason for the scheme wind-up, regardless of length of service and regardless of age."
"Nobody told us of the risk we were taking, not the Government, not the FSA, or OPAS, or OPRA, or the NAPF, or our employers. All led us to believe our pensions were safe, guaranteed and protected by law.
We only want what we were promised. Surely that is fair."
This is not about charity. It is about justice, and that should be the basis for payments from the fund.
Kevin Brennan : The hon. Member for Northavon (Mr. Webb) said that I had bored for Wales on the issue of occupational pensions. May I return the compliment and say that he has nerded for Northavon throughout our debates?
I begin with a comment about the people whom I have tried to represent in our discussions. My hon. Friend the Member—I call him the learned Member; I know that is technically not in order, but he is a professor—for Aberavon (Dr. Francis) yesterday gave me a badge that his late father, Dai Francis, who was a distinguished trade union leader in Wales, had in a drawer at home. The badge says, "Steel must stay in Cardiff". As the hon. Member for East Carmarthen and Dinefwr (Adam Price) will know, it dates back to the 1970s, when there was a campaign by some of the same people whom I have been representing. At that time, they were working in a nationalised industry—the steel industry—and certainly thought their pension was guaranteed. Some of them are now close to retirement age.
Those workers are tempered by the heat of battle, as steel men should be, rather than put off by it. That is why they have been so durable in fighting the battle. It has helped me in trying to take up the campaign, along with many other hon. Members, a large number of whom are in the Chamber this afternoon. They are too numerous to mention, but all have made an important contribution.
New clause 34 represents an astonishing victory for the campaign that those workers and workers from other companies around the country have waged on the issue. It is a testament and a compliment to the dignity, steadfastness and solidarity—if I may use some old-fashioned words—shown by the workers who have been faced with the problem. It is a good example of why it is important that people join trade unions. Many of those people were members of trade unions and their trade unions were able, for example, to collect funds, possibly to take a legal case to court, if necessary. That could not have happened if they were not members of trade unions, and it shows the importance of trade union membership.
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I have worked closely with the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation and also with Amicus, but other trade unions have been involved. In addition to showing the importance of trade union membership, the campaign has also shown the importance of having a Labour Government. Instinctively, the Government have understood the issue—a difficult, complex issue that they have had to deal with. They have instinctively understood it from day one and have not shut the door on doing something that some people said was impossible at the beginning of the campaign—to get retrospective assistance for those who have been affected.
I pay tribute to the Secretary of State, to the Minister for Pensions and his predecessors, to the Prime Minister for the interest he has taken in the issue, and to the Chancellor, who has disproved one of Churchill's sayings. My right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) earlier quoted Churchill. Another of Churchill's sayings was that the Treasury was the inverse of the Mr. Micawber principle: instead of waiting for something to turn up, the Treasury was waiting for something to turn down. In this case the Treasury has come through and should be complimented. A compliment is due to the Chancellor for his role in bringing about the new clause before us, which permits the Government to use public funds in order to deal with the matter.
I have said all along that I did not mind where the funds came from. I said that in Committee. Unlike some colleagues, I think it is entirely proper that money from general taxation should be available for such purposes. The scheme is right for three basic reasons.
Mr. Waterson: I confirm that the hon. Gentleman said in Committee that he does not mind where the money comes from. Before he moves on, is he satisfied that his constituents, whom he has valiantly represented in discussions and debates, will be fully compensated? If not, is he satisfied by the compensation that they will receive?
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