Pensions Bill

Debate between Baroness Clark of Kilwinning and Richard Graham

Tuesday 29th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Richard Graham]

I am glad to see the Minister nodding on that.

[Katy Clark]

Like the hon. Gentleman, I have nuclear power stations in my constituency—Hunterston A, which is being decommissioned, and Hunterston B. Has he, like me, been contacted by numerous employees who are incredibly concerned about the protections that will be taken away from them by this Bill?

[Richard Graham]

That is an interesting point. The answer is yes, but they are not in the hundreds. They come in two types. One type number those who are either still working there and are concerned about possible changes to the defined benefit scheme and exactly the issue I have just gone through with the Minister. I hope that that will be reassuring to the hon. Lady’s constituents as well as to mine.

The second type of person who has been in touch relates to the third constituency query I was going to raise: those members who are covered by the Electricity (Protected Persons) (England and Wales) Pension Regulations 1990. I see the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Katy Clark) nodding and suspect that she has been contacted by people in a similar situation. The issue is that their pensions might be affected by changes to their pension schemes to reflect these higher national insurance costs. I understand that the Government have still not responded to their own consultation on whether to exempt protected persons from these changes. The Minister might care to comment on that later. It might be something that the Treasury is involved in, alongside the Department for Work and Pensions, but I think that it would be right to express concern on behalf of some of the pensioners involved. However, I understand that there is an argument that both existing pensioners and current members of a pension scheme should be treated with consistency on that. I raise the issue so that the Minister can respond. Those were the three queries on bereavement, change of occupational schemes—which has been answered—and the protected persons scheme.

In conclusion, what the Government are proposing in the Pensions Bill is important and will make a difference. The changes will enable people to save and that saving will pay. The technical details, which the Minister covered earlier, are important for smoothing out some of the small but niggly details that will affect our constituents in due course.

At the risk of repeating myself, I am disappointed by the approach taken by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East. For him and his party to fall back on a slogan of “consultation not action” really was disappointing; after 86 minutes we would have hoped for a great deal more clarity on his precise proposals. What exactly does he intend to do on charges? In the absence of such clarity, I hope that he and Members from all parties will make substantive contributions to the consultation so that we can agree on the charges, make changes to the annuity details and say with pride to all our constituents that this Pensions Bill will make a difference to all our lives in retirement.