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Malcolm Wicks: I do not see how one can say to a solvent company, "We recognise that you have got a pension problem; the taxpayer will write you a cheque." I put it to the hon. Gentleman that hundreds of companies and pension schemes would knock on our door and say, "The company is doing all right. We are solvent, but we have a black hole in our pension scheme, and we understand that the financial assistance scheme can bail us out." That would be nonsense and a slippery slope to the nationalisation of all financial risk. It is simply not credible.
Moving on—[Interruption.] It is not for the Liberal Democrats to suggest what the Conservative party is suggesting. Perhaps the Conservative party will suggest what it is suggesting.
Mr. Waterson:
I am grateful to the Minister for finally letting me intervene. We have not made a spending
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pledge, because we want to go down the path of using unclaimed assets, which have nothing to do with the taxpayer. My point is simple: why are the Government automatically excluding all solvent wind-ups? APW, which we heard about this morning, is the perfect example, and it is automatically excluded from any help under the FAS. The workers will be just as badly off regardless of whether the wind-up is solvent or insolvent.
Malcolm Wicks: I am trying to be fair, and that question and the workers' sense of injustice are both perfectly reasonable. However, those of us who frame social policy and who examine the financial implications and perverse consequences of taking the wrong decision must be tough-minded. Where an employer is solvent, they should take responsibility for supporting the pension scheme. [Interruption.] Someone is mumbling, but I will not be distracted unless they care to stand up.
I have outlined our record on children, jobs and pensioners and discussed the cycle of opportunity and advantage that we should create. I contrast that record with the Conservative position. We are proud of our record on employment, but many people remember the Conservative party as the party of mass unemployment. We will listen carefully and critically to its proposals on council tax, but many people remember it as the party of the poll tax, for which its current leader took special responsibility. [Interruption.] The number of Conservative Front Benchers has expanded, which is good because they need some support.
When the Tories discuss pensioner poverty, we remember that, in 1997, the previous Government expected a single pensioner on income support to survive on £69 a week. From April, we will provide £109 a week, which is an increase of £40. That is the difference between talk and action. When we consider the Conservatives' spending pledges of—is it £35 billion?—and hear about their spending cuts, we will contrast the figures with their desire to tell the electorate that they want to spend more. We shall question time and again the sense of abolishing the new deal, which has given so much hope to our young people and the long-term unemployed and been so successful in enabling lone parents to get back into the labour market.
We shall also question the dogma that the Jobcentre Plus network should be privatised. I shall continue to remind the shadow Secretary of State and the shadow Minister that they declined to give a Second Reading to the Pensions Bill, which introduced the Pension Protection Fund.
Andrew Selous: Will the Minister give way?
Malcolm Wicks: I wanted to say a few kind words about the Liberals, but I am happy to give way.
Andrew Selous: Will the Minister respond to my point about the new deal for young people and the new deal 25-plus? Is he proud of that fact that only 12 per cent. of those who start on the new deal 25-plus get into unsubsidised employment? That is not a good record. There could be a better way in which to spend the money.
Malcolm Wicks:
I do not know that statistic. My colleagues will consider the matter. However, I am
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pleased that young people, who were thrown into the dustbin of economic change in the past, now have different opportunities. We all know that the first step into training or the labour market often enables people to take more decisive steps.
Like the Tories, the Liberal Democrats have some reasonable ideas about pension reform in the state sector, and we can compare and contrast the different approaches to tackling pensioner poverty. However, I find it difficult to take the way in which the hon. Member for Northavon (Mr. Webb) always talks down pension credit. Even when we say, with some pride but no complacency, that we are pleased that 80 per cent. of the poorest pensioners now get pension credit, the response is, "It's only 80 per cent. What about the 20 per cent.?" Hon. Members who talk down pension credit and suggest that people have to fill in the long form, that it stigmatises and is no different from the means tests of old, are part of the problem. They put people off claiming pension credit and are therefore not part of the solution. I want them to be part of the solution because although more than 3 million elderly people receive pension credit and know the answer to Liberal Democrat cynicism, I want the figure to be far higher.
What about the position of the hon. Member for Northavon on the financial assistance scheme? He has always talked down the possibility of such a scheme and been cynical about it. He has told groups of workers and trade unions not to listen to the Government because we would never do anything about a financial assistance scheme. Let me give chapter and verse. In January 2004, in Work and Pensions questions, he asked:
"In fact, is it not true that the Government will do precisely nothing and take many months to do it? Those workers are hoping for a last-minute announcement that the Government will come up with something for them. Would it not have been more honest and generated less false hope to have told them that at the start?"—[Official Report, 12 January 2004; Vol. 416 c. 513.]
He was wrong and we were right in our determination to develop a financial assistance scheme. As soon as possible, it will give 80 per cent. of core pension rights to British workers who have worked hard and, through no fault of theirs, find that their pension hopes have been
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dashed. We are giving not false hope but real hope to that group. It is time that the Liberal Democrats stopped being cynical and recognised that the scheme is a major advance.
Peter Bottomley (Worthing, West) (Con): Does the Minister propose to end his speech without mentioning the British pensioners overseas, who get upratings in the United States but not in Canada or the other Dominions?
Malcolm Wicks: Welcome. Is it still cold outside? I am a little old-fashioned—I am replying to the debate. If the hon. Gentleman had made a proper contribution, I could have responded. A court case is coming up soon on the matter and we will examine the judgment. I am sorry—I did not mean to be churlish to my old friend, but we would have welcomed his presence in the debate because it was slightly lonely in here for an hour or so.
This Labour Government are proud of our record on tackling child poverty, seeking to abolish fuel poverty and helping to eradicate pensioner hardship. However, we are not complacent and we are eager to do more. We want to give proper status and respect to those with disabilities and those who are carers. We want to increase employment opportunities for all our citizens and further to support our children and our elderly people. Yes, this is a case of "forward, not back"—I use the phrase again, as it seems to go down well. The Labour Government are proving that we can combine economic competence with social justice. What we are about is a Britain that works and a Britain that cares.
That the draft Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2005, which was laid before this House on 1st February, be approved.
PENSIONS
That the draft Guaranteed Minimum Pension Increase Order 2005, which was laid before this House on 1st February, be approved.—[Jim Fitzpatrick.]
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Drugs Bill (Programme) (No.2)
5.25 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Caroline Flint): I beg to move,
2. Proceedings on consideration shall be taken in the following order: amendments to the clauses of the Bill; amendments to the Schedules of the Bill; New Clauses; New Schedules; remaining proceedings on consideration.
3. Proceedings on consideration shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion two hours after the commencement of proceedings on the motion for this order.
4. Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion three hours after the commencement of proceedings on the motion for this order.
I shall be brief, and I hope that we can achieve consensus on this issue. We want to ensure that we guarantee the three hours of debate on the Drugs Bill. There was extensive discussion in our six sittings in Committee, including a very long discussion on the reclassification of cannabis. That was also voted on in Committee. The programme motion allows us three hours of debate on the Bill. It also allows us to deal with the most important issues in an appropriate order.
A number of the issues raised in Committee gave me pause for thought, and I have tried to capture our response in the Government amendments, to show that we have been listening to the concerns that were raised. I hope that Opposition Members will agree that that is what we have achieved.
I would like to apologise to Opposition Members for the late arrival today of a letter that was based on issues raised in Committee. I want to offer my unreserved apology for that, and I hope that it will not happen again in my ministerial career, however short or long that might be.
5.27 pm
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