The Minister for Security and Borders (Damian Hinds)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Jane Hunt) on securing this debate. I am grateful to her, and I welcome the opportunity to address the House on the important issue of firefighters’ pensions. The Government hugely value the unique roles that our firefighters undertake and it is only right that their pensions remain among the best pension schemes available in the public sector. Our brave firefighters keep us safe. They do the most extraordinary job day in, day out, in the most difficult situations.
The Government also recognise that the cost of providing public service pensions must be fair to the schemes’ members, the employers and the taxpayer. It is important that the costs of public service pensions are understood and fully acknowledged by Government so that they remain affordable and sustainable for generations to come.
Jane Hunt
I absolutely understand that, but this is about the discretionary element. As I see it, there is only one instance of this happening. The Prime Minister said at the time that the fire service could look at this, but the fire service does not believe that it can do so because of the rules and regulations. It is the discretionary element that I am interested in.
Damian Hinds
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. There is some limited ability under the rules for fire authorities to exercise some discretion on some decisions. That would involve, for example, determining whether a person was on duty or not at the time of an injury or death. However, the rules of the 1992 scheme do not provide a fire authority with the discretion to pay a pension to an individual who does not qualify for it.
Jane Hunt
The point is that Mr Wilkens was on the 1992 scheme at the time and that, due to his age, he was being tapered over to the 2015 scheme. If he had not been that age, he would not have been tapering at the time and might already have been on the scheme, in which case his partner would immediately have got the pension.
Damian Hinds
I am grateful for that clarification, and I will come on to that point in a moment.
My hon. Friend has spoken movingly of the sad circumstances of the case of Ms Melanie Perry, whose partner Mr Wilkens passed away in 2016 and who did not qualify for any survivor pension entitlement. I appreciate that this is an extremely sensitive matter. It is the current legislation underpinning the firefighters’ pension schemes that provides the qualifying criteria for an individual’s pension entitlement and therefore sets the parameters on what payments can be made by an employer out of the pension scheme. On the death of a scheme member, the 1992 firefighters’ pension scheme, of which I understand Mr Wilkens was a member, provides benefits to the surviving spouse or civil partner. These benefits do not extend to unmarried partners. As my hon. Friend will know, that was quite common among pension schemes of that time.
It has been the position of successive Governments not to make retrospective changes to public service pension schemes, and that has not changed. A new pension scheme was introduced for all newly recruited firefighters in April 2006. While the 2006 scheme has a higher retirement age than that of the 1992 scheme, it does provide survivor benefits that extend to unmarried partners. At the time the 2006 scheme was introduced, fire and rescue authorities offered existing 1992 scheme members the option to transition to the 2006 scheme if they wanted to benefit from the modernised scheme design. I understand that a letter was sent to Mr Wilkens from his employing fire and rescue authority in August 2006 providing this option. Ultimately, it appears that Mr Wilkens did not take this option.
Jane Hunt
The Minister has mentioned the 2006 changes. At the time of Mr Wilkens’ passing in 2016, he and his partner had been together for 10 years, so that letter would have come at the beginning of their relationship. I think we can therefore forgive them for not taking up that offer at the time.
Damian Hinds
I understand my hon. Friend’s point.
In 2010, the coalition Government established the Independent Public Service Pensions Commission, chaired by Lord Hutton of Furness. The commission undertook a comprehensive review of the main public service pension schemes, including the firefighters’ schemes. Following the review, public service pensions underwent a significant period of change with the introduction of new, reformed unfunded pension schemes from April 2015. At that time, full and tapered protections were afforded to those scheme members who were closest to retirement. For firefighters, this included those who were within 14 years of their normal pension age.
In 2018, as my hon. Friend alluded to, these protections were found by the courts to be unlawfully discriminatory in respect of the firefighters’ and the judicial pension schemes on the grounds of age. In effect, the courts found that younger pension scheme members suffered a disadvantage as a result of the Government’s efforts to protect those nearest to retirement from the impact of the reforms. The Government accepted that ruling and that the remedy to remove the discrimination should apply to all public service pension schemes. The Government are now in the process of removing the discriminatory elements. This is a careful and complex process to get right.
The deferred choice underpin, referred to by my hon. Friend, will be introduced by the Government via the Public Service Pensions and Judicial Offices Bill currently before Parliament and will be enacted by regulations to be laid by the Home Office. It is the Government’s intention that the underpin will give the beneficiaries of deceased members the opportunity to choose from which pension scheme to receive their survivor benefits for any service during the period 1 April 2015 to 31 March 2022.
From the information provided, it appears that Mr Wilkens’s pension would qualify for that remedy. The impact of the remedy on Mr Wilkens’s survivor benefits will not be known until the remedy is fully implemented by October 2023. At that stage, fire and rescue authorities will start the process of contacting all those entitled to the remedy with details of their options, as the statutory pensions administrator for each area.
In closing, I thank my hon. Friend again for securing this important debate and for the elegant way in which she made her points in the House this evening.
Question put and agreed to.