Pension Schemes Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Garden of Frognal and Baroness Altmann

Consideration of Commons amendments & Ping Pong (Hansard) & Ping Pong (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 19th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

Noble Lords in the Chamber have indicated that they wish to speak. I call the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann.

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend the Minister on introducing this group of amendments and particularly thank her, the Bill team officials and the Pensions Regulator for engaging with us in such a collegiate manner. The co-operativeness and openness that have been shown to all noble Lords across the House have been hugely welcomed and already commented upon; I reiterate that this approach has improved the Bill and that this will continue into the future when it comes to the regulations. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham, as well as the noble Baronesses, Lady Sherlock and Lady Drake, on the way in which we have all been able to co-operate on this important issue.

I briefly express concerns about the MaPS dashboard being sidelined and the data-security issues that may be involved in the dashboard, as well as, importantly, the fairness issues that will be dealt with in regulations of CDC schemes. Having dealt with that, I turn to Motions 4A and 4C. It is important that my noble friend can provide reassurance that scheme-specific approaches that have endured so far will be preserved. As the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, has outlined—echoed by the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock—there are issues on which I am confident my noble friend will be able to reassure us.

Pension Protection Fund (Moratorium and Arrangements and Reconstructions for Companies in Financial Difficulty) (Amendment and Revocation) Regulations 2020

Debate between Baroness Garden of Frognal and Baroness Altmann

Wednesday 21st October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the new regulations to ensure that the Pension Protection Fund can better protect its interests and those of pension scheme members whose supporting employers unfortunately need to enter a moratorium period or restructuring due to the current crisis. These cover the entities, including charitable organisations, friendly societies, credit unions and so on, which may be particularly vulnerable in the current circumstances.

The Pension Protection Fund is one of our flagship organisations, which has done marvellous work to protect the pensions of millions in this country and has compensated those who would otherwise have faced the potential of losing their pension rights if the employer failed, and possibly of losing their jobs too. It is vital that employers and corporate directors are not allowed to game the PPF or take advantage of financial turmoil to walk away from liabilities on which so many ordinary workers rely, as the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, just said. I congratulate the PPF and put on record that I believe its staff have done brilliant work. I am sure that they will continue to do so with efficient administration and careful stewardship.

These regulations result from new measures passed in the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act, which potentially weaken the rights of DB scheme members, trustees and managers to funds and assets belonging to the sponsoring employer during a moratorium or restructuring. I thank my noble friend and congratulate her on the way in which she introduced the regulations.

To allow the Pension Protection Fund to represent the trustees and managers in negotiations is an important measure, since it has to safeguard the interests not only of each pension scheme but of all other schemes too, and a moratorium does not trigger a PPF assessment period. If pension sponsors can more easily find ways to walk away from their liabilities without putting extra funds into the schemes in the current crisis, because it ranks only as an ordinary unsecured creditor without super-priority, and financial firms have leap-frogged up the priority order, the Pension Protection Fund could be forced to take on extra liabilities, which will ultimately fall on other sponsors via higher levy payments. As I expressed during the passage of the Act, I am particularly concerned at the ability of the sponsor or its other creditors to ask the courts to release assets that were supposed to have been pledged to the pension scheme as part of previous scheme-specific funding arrangements, leaving the scheme far more underfunded than was ever intended. I understand that the legislation ensures that any restructuring plan must not put creditors in a worse position than on insolvency, but can my noble friend confirm that this also definitely applies to the Pension Protection Fund? If she would like to write to me on my point, that will be fine. In addition, which parts of the previous regulations that she mentioned in her introduction have been revoked by this instrument?

Finally, I will ask a few other questions of which I have given my noble friend prior notice. I note that the Pension Protection Fund will produce guidance for monitors and directors on what information it will need to receive and its general approach to a moratorium or restructuring. When will that happen? Can she confirm the assessment of the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, that no companies have yet gone into moratorium since this legislation was passed, and if any have, how many have done so and how many have a DB scheme attached?

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, and the noble Lord, Lord McColl, have withdrawn, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Hain.

Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Baroness Garden of Frognal and Baroness Altmann

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 7th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Altmann (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I support all the amendments in this group. I have added my name to Amendments 47 and 66, but the intentions and sentiments already expressed so well by many noble Lords are ones that I fully endorse. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, the noble Baronesses, Lady Hamwee and Lady Masham, and other noble Lords for the excellent way in which they have explained the urgent need for measures in the Bill that specifically address the shortage of social care staff. I implore my noble friend on the Front Bench, who I know cares about this issue as much as so many of us around the House, to take back to the department the strength of feeling across the House on this matter and address some of these issues before Report.

We are talking here about the biggest failure of social policy in modern times. The inadequacy of our social care provision is already well documented and well known, and the Government are already committed to addressing this issue as soon as possible. We cannot move forward and improve the quality of social care without staff. We cannot mechanise this. Care workers may be low paid, but that does not mean they are low skilled. They are essential to enabling increasing numbers of people to live decent lives. We are not talking about bringing in low-paid shelf stackers; we are talking about the emotional, physical and mental well-being of some of our most vulnerable citizens.

Given that the Government are the main funders of social care and have not yet funded adequately social care providers who employ staff who might generally earn above the £25,000 cut-off, that imposes on the Government a duty to ensure that our immigration policy does not deter those who might be willing to work for less than that figure—most of the people who work in social care already do so—from coming to this country when, as we have already heard, around one in five of our social care staff is already from overseas.

I know my noble friend responded to these concerns at Second Reading by saying that the Government hope that Britons will fill the shortfall, but hopes are not good enough. It takes time to try to find any UK nationals, train them in the right skills and raise the standards of pay. What are these elderly and disabled people supposed to do in the meantime? They need care. I therefore hope my noble friend might still consider the implications of these amendments, or at the very least agree to a transitional, temporary social care visa, perhaps for five or 10 years, that specifically enables social care providers and individuals who need to employ somebody to care for them in their own home to find those overseas workers who are willing to come here and fill the gaps we currently have, rather than having an immigration system that rules out being able to bring them in.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, has withdrawn, so I now call the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett.

Corporate Insolvency and Governance Bill

Debate between Baroness Garden of Frognal and Baroness Altmann

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 16th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees]

The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, does not seem to be in his place in the Chamber, so we will go to the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann.

[Baroness Altmann [V]]

My Lords, I will be brief. I support the amendments in this group. Amendment 23 from the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, and the noble Lord, Lord Fox—which the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, explained very well—helps to explain the importance of increasing the protection for unsecured creditors being pushed further down the list of priority by the measures in this Bill. Following on from some of the remarks by the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, I suggest to my noble friend the Minister that the Government could even consider offering super-priority for less than a Section 75 debt but still recognise the debts owed to the pension scheme, if it has a deficit. That could be in the form of Section 179 debt, which would at least cover the PPF level of benefit, or even for technical provisions, so that at least that has some extra security, especially in light of the current level of annuity rates following extensive quantitative easing and the extra cost of Section 75 debt.