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Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: Yes, my Lords, of course I can agree with that. The only point I would make to my noble friend is that our concern extends to every life lost. I refer not only to every civilian life but to every life—that is, every military life, every member of the Black Watch and every one of our soldiers. They are all negatives. I am sometimes concerned that we talk only about the loss of civilian life and our concern for civilian life as though the loss of military life is a
 
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matter of less concern to us. I know that that is not what my noble friend meant. Estimates are available. The question is how robust those estimates are, and that is why my right honourable friend has asked for a further analysis of the article in the Lancet and other available material.

Business

Lord Grocott: My Lords, I shall say a quick word about business later today. With permission, there will be two Statements. The first—on the EU Summit—will be made as soon as convenient after 4.30 p.m. and will be repeated by my noble friend the Leader of the House. Later, at around 6.45 p.m., a Statement will be repeated by my noble friend Lord Rooker on regional referendums.

In order to be clear, the business scheduled for the dinner break, which, as noble Lords know, normally comes at 7.30 p.m., will come immediately after the regional referendums Statement. A further minor adjustment, which I think is common sense, is that we shall return to the debate on the Pensions Bill no sooner than 8 p.m. In straightforward terms, that means that the minimum gap in the debate on the Pensions Bill will be from 6.45 p.m., when the Statement starts, until 8 p.m. I hope that that is clear.

Civil Contingencies Bill

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.

Moved, That the amendments for the Report stage be marshalled and considered in the following order:

Clauses 1 to 18, Schedule 1, Clauses 19 to 32, Schedules 2 and 3, Clauses 33 to 36.—(Lord Bassam of Brighton.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Highways (Obstruction by Body Corporate) Bill

Read a third time, and passed.

Pensions Bill

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Hollis of Heigham): My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now further considered on Report.

Moved, That the Bill be further considered on Report.—(Baroness Hollis of Heigham.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.
 
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Clause 284 [Financial assistance scheme for members of certain pension schemes]:

Lord Higgins moved Amendment No. 260:

The noble Lord said: My Lords, Amendment No. 260 stands in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Skelmersdale. It may be helpful to put the amendment in a more general context by way of introduction. This and the following amendment are to a very important clause, which deals with the financial assistance scheme introduced by the Government at a very late stage in the Bill's passage through the House of Commons. Consequently, there has been very limited scope indeed for the House of Commons to express any views on the Government's particular proposals. I say "particular proposals", although if one looks at the measures that were introduced in Clause 284, with which this amendment seeks to deal, one will see that it runs to fewer than two pages and is in an extremely uncertain state indeed. Virtually every possible aspect of the financial assistance scheme is to be dealt with by way of regulation. The House of Commons had virtually no opportunity to consider the matter as we were able to in considerable depth in Grand Committee.

Your Lordships may recall that this clause and the proposal were introduced as a result of enormous concern expressed in the House of Commons about the plight of those whose pension schemes had, in simple terms, gone bust. That was reflected in a number of Early Day Motions, which were supported on all sides of the Commons. It also became apparent that there was to be a very significant Labour revolt on the Government Benches if something of this kind were not introduced.

The problem, as we now see it on this side of the House, is that the clause itself, as I said a moment ago, is extremely vague. The Chancellor of the Exchequer was obviously persuaded that something must be done, so came up with a nice round figure of £400 million by way of support—although in reality, of course, it is not £400 million because it is spread over 20 or 30 years and the present value of that £400 million might be something like £250 million. That figure was introduced and I fear that the Chancellor is likely to do all he can by way of damage limitation, if not actually to double-cross those who were persuaded not to revolt against the Government, at least to short-change them. We shall come to those points on later amendments.

However, this amendment is concerned with a specific government proposal; namely, to produce the sum of £400 million. As of now, and despite the debates in Grand Committee, we have no idea what is the basis for that £400 million, but we feel very strongly that it should be made clear that government money will be produced to deal with this particular problem.

Considerable concern has been expressed outside—for example, by the Engineering Employers Federation—that the sum will, to some extent, be contributed to by industry and so on, and that is the reason for the
 
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amendment. In the Statement made on 14 May about the FAS, Mr Andrew Smith, who was then Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, said:

Again, on the second allotted date of the Bill's Report stage in the House of Commons on 19 May, Mr Malcolm Wicks, the pensions Minister, stated:

It seems to us appropriate that this should be a government responsibility and one in which there should be no financial cost to the outside interests concerned. Essentially, that is the purpose of the amendment.

I make one final general point. In the course of Grand Committee debates, the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, said that she was not prepared to accept the Opposition chipping away at the Government's proposals. That was a very strange expression to use. We do not seek to chip away at the Government's proposals, as they are simply a solid block of proposals on regulations and it would be difficult to produce any sculpture out of that solid block. We are exerting the right of this House, and indeed Parliament's right, to say that the legislation should be as specific as possible so that we have some idea where we are going.

At the moment the clause is a mere skeleton. It has come out of the cupboard, but we have no idea of its content. It is right that this House should, as far as possible—although it is very difficult—put some flesh on the bones of the skeleton. That is not chipping away. Unless we do that, the Bill will go through as it is and the Government will have complete control over what happens thereafter by way of introducing regulations. As far as possible, we want to pin down the Government to specific proposals and this is the first of a series of amendments that seek to do that. I beg to move.

Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay: My Lords, from these Benches let me clarify our approach to the FAS and to the matters that we are discussing this afternoon. I shall then deal with this first specific amendment. As I said in Grand Committee, and as the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, says now, this is barely a skeleton of a Bill. There really is nothing for us to see here at all. We are trying to pin down to some extent, and in very broad terms, what this provision will mean and who it will cover. We know roughly how much it will cost on average over 20 years, although we have no idea of the cost in the early stages. Specifically, what the ASW workers, and many other people who have been suffering for years while they waited for this want to know is when it will start. That is what we are discussing under this amendment.

Last May, after a long period of the Government saying that they did not want to raise false hopes and that they were unable to do anything, with defeat in the House of Commons staring the Government in the
 
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face, suddenly this scheme was cobbled together—a tribute to democracy. We welcome it, but it was not the best way to do it. It is now right for us to scrutinise the provision and to put some limits on this use of public money.

Later we shall talk about eligibility; whether, in principle, what is called a solvent wind-up will be covered. On that, it seems entirely reasonable to us, that there should be a fixed starting date. Given how long people have been waiting and how desperate the need is, it would be inconceivable for the first payments not to be made within a few months after the Act comes into force. Whether it is a specific date as the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, has suggested, which we are happy to support, or another date, that is fine.

Specifically on this amendment, I pressed the Minister on the issue of money coming from private funds, and I thought that she gave me a fairly clear assurance that I would have been happy to accept in principle. However, I defer to the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, with his greater experience of Bills in this House and of government commitments in this House. If he wishes to put the Minister's assurance on this point more firmly on the record, we shall support him, although I invite the noble Baroness to be as specific and as clear as she can. I am sorry if I have given more of a tour d'horizon of our general approach to the Bill, but, before coming to the first vote, I believe that it is helpful for noble Lords to have an idea of where we stand on the financial assistance scheme.

Make no mistake, this is a matter of great public concern outside, not just to the 65,000 or more people directly affected, but also to the many who fear that, before the PPF comes into effect, they may be affected. The injustice of the 65,000 people, who already are clearly suffering, is deeply felt. I support the amendment.

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