Pension Schemes Bill

Debate between Baroness Altmann and Lord Wigley

Committee stage
Thursday 5th February 2026 Grand Committee

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 203ZB, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Brixton. I shall also address the government amendments in this group. I have signed the noble Lord’s Amendment 203, which we will come to later, recognising that he has professional expertise far greater than mine in dealing with these matters and believing that he comes to these issues, as I am certain he does, from a position of recognising that one group of workers in particular—those of Allied Steel and Wire in Cardiff—were extremely badly treated over 20 years ago, about which I spoke earlier in our deliberations.

I listened with interest and concern to the explanation given by the Minister for introducing these amendments, and I am far from certain as to whether, when enacted, the discretion to which she referred will give former employees of Allied Steel and Wire any of the redress which they seek for the pension loss they suffered with regard to their pre-1997 employment. Are we today recognising the fairness of their claim but not providing any vehicle by which it can, in fact, be met? That is my fear.

In Committee in the other place, my Plaid Cymru colleague, Ann Davies MP, introduced two amendments to provide indexation for compensation under FAS and the PPF to cover both pre-1997 and post-1997 service, and to reimburse members for the annual increase they should have received. The Government rejected those amendments, saying they would not work. Ann Davies MP came back on Report proposing a new clause to provide indexation. The Government rejected that clause so, in considering these and possibly later amendments, I ask the Minister whether their combined effect will do anything at all to give the pre-1997 pensions full indexation and not limit them to the 2.5% cap which Ministers supported in the other place? Will they do anything to reimburse those members for the annual increases which they never received?

[Baroness Altmann (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I support and have added my name to the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Davies. I support all his remarks, especially on the only excuse for not recognising that people need pre-1997 indexation going forward. There is a wrong that is being corrected; therefore, that wrong probably applies even more to benefits from the past. One of the reasons why I say “even more so” is because the members who have the most pre-1997 accrual are the oldest—by definition, they must be. They have much less time left to live and many of them have, sadly, already passed away. Therefore, to right this wrong by promising people money in future that they may never see, or will see almost none of, does not seem a solid way of righting a wrong.

I understand—I will go through this in more detail in the next group—that the Financial Assistance Scheme, for example, is supposedly funded by public money, while the PPF itself and employer contributions, in the form of the levy, provides the money for PPF compensation, but £2 billion from the scheme was transferred to the public purse. Thankfully, when we were trying to improve the Financial Assistance Scheme in 2005, Andrew Young recommended stopping annuity purchase, which had been happening and, unfortunately, transferred much of the money to insurers rather than putting it towards the Government to pay out over time. Nevertheless, the Financial Assistance Scheme itself represents some of the biggest losers and the ones with the most pre-1997 accrual.

Therefore, I urge the Government to recognise that the cost of the requirements in the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Davies, are easily affordable from the PPF reserve—£14.5 billion is available. The cost estimate for this retrospective addition to the pre-1997 accruals that were not paid in terms of inflation uplifts could be around £500 million out of the £14.5 billion, depending on how the arrears are paid. I would be grateful to the Minister if she could confirm some of the Government’s estimates for what this would be; I have looked at the PPF’s estimates.

I add that the Financial Assistance Scheme does not only help those who affected by insolvency. The European court case was about insolvency, but the MFR protected employers who just wanted to walk away from their schemes before the law changed. Paying in only the MFR was hopelessly inadequate to afford the pensions. There was a brilliant campaign by the unions that went to the European court, and the Government had a great fear that they would lose that. Prior to that, we had an appeal by the workers of Allied Steel and Wire and many of the other schemes to the Pensions Ombudsman, who found in their favour and against the Government, and to the Public Accounts Select Committee. Then we had to go to the High Court, taking a case against the Government, and we won. We also went to the Court of Appeal, taking a case against the Government, and we won on behalf of those whose schemes had failed, whether the employers were insolvent or not, which means that they are all now included.

Even so, the Financial Assistance Scheme and the PPF have not recognised the pre-1997 inflation losses that have left many of these members with half their pension, or even less in some cases. I hope that the Government will look favourably on the amendment. I welcome it, and I am very grateful to the Minister for the recognition that we need to do something—there may be further consideration of that; we will come back to it in subsequent groups—to recompense for the losses of the past.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Baroness Altmann and Lord Wigley

Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 7th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wigley]

I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, for his helpful intervention. We are all European citizens; it is a European passport that we carry at the moment. Some of our rights are enshrined in the context of Europe, some in the context of the UK and some—in my case, as I mentioned a moment ago—in the context of Wales.

I am not going to speak at length to this amendment because there are several noble Lords who will speak with greater authority on the legal positions involved. However, I want to use the principles underpinning the rights of citizens in the EU to say a brief word about EU citizenship in a broader context: the rights afforded to us at present as citizens of the EU and the status of those rights once we leave. These matters are highly germane to the amendments before us—and they will not go away.

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

I want to present to the Committee an observation: according to the December agreement reached by the Prime Minister, citizens of Northern Ireland will still be EU citizens after we leave. I am not sure where that leaves the rights of everyone else in the UK.

[Lord Wigley]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for introducing that point; I was going to move on to it a little later but I shall do so now. Northern Ireland creates a precedent, if the undertakings that have been reported are indeed carried out. It is a part of a union of countries that may be retaining its rights after the other parts of the UK may lose theirs. Of course, there is a precedent in the context of Ireland: people in the Irish Republic maintained many of the rights relating to the UK that they previously enjoyed after the Republic was formed, and for many people those rights continue up to today. As the noble Baroness has said, many of the rights relating to the EU of citizens of Northern Ireland may well continue after Brexit. If it is possible to negotiate such rights for some of the citizens of the UK, why cannot such rights be ongoing for all its citizens?