Local Government Pensions Scheme (Transitional Provisions, Savings and Amendment) Regulations 2014
Debate between Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, I rise to speak on this matter because, although other Members of this House have been Assembly members—and, obviously, councillors—before, I am the only remaining Assembly member in this House. I thank the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, for tabling the Motion of Regret. I have also been a councillor, and I can tell your Lordships that I certainly did not feel like a volunteer. I felt like someone who worked extremely hard; it was way beyond anything that a volunteer has to put up with.
I think that it is deeply illogical, in particular, for Assembly members and the Mayor of London to be excluded from the scheme. It is true that we are full-time and we are salaried. We are, in effect, like MPs: we have the same sort of elected demands on our time. Of course, the Mayor of London is also a police and crime commissioner. It seems deeply illogical that other police and crime commissioners will stay in the pension scheme when the Mayor of London will be excluded, although he is a police and crime commissioner by law. I would like a bit of clarification on that: is he excluded as Mayor of London but included as police and crime commissioner? In its report of 2000, the Senior Salaries Review Body recognised the full-time roles of the mayor and the Assembly members, and it decided that they should be members of the Local Government Pension Scheme. The SSRB saw no reason to change these arrangements.
It is also deeply unfair for councillors to be excluded. It is a time when it is harder and harder to find people to stand for these posts: they are less and less rewarding, and to exclude councillors from a pension scheme is not just unfair but also rather cruel.
In addition, Assembly members and the Mayor of London will have to find alternative arrangements for their pensions. This will probably be much more expensive than the local government scheme but it will be funded by the taxpayer. We have heard about savings, but actually it will cost the taxpayer more if we go outside the scheme. Therefore, I deeply regret that this has happened.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Con)
My Lords, it is important to look at this in context. In opening, I say to the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, that we have to be careful when we talk about volunteers. There are millions of volunteers in this country who do fantastic work, and we should not categorise them as “mere volunteers”. They do fantastic service for this nation. I recognise that councillors’ work is of a special nature, but we should not detract in any way from the marvellous work done by volunteers up and down all the nations of the United Kingdom.
The nature of councillors’ work is different from that of those people who have, historically, been protected by the Local Government Pension Scheme. I think we would all recognise that the first aim of the Local Government Pension Scheme should be to provide a decent, a good, pension for those who work for our local authorities. Historically, going back to the beginning of the century, councillors were not provided with a pension. It was introduced in the aftermath of 9/11, either on that day or on the next day. That is not to say that it was wrong, but it was perhaps not given the consideration that it should have had. This reverts to the historical position of recognising that councillors are somewhat different. They do—let us recognise it—fantastic service: unstinting, unsung, underappreciated and very often totally unappreciated. However, it is also worth saying—and, to be fair, the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, said this—that it is only a small minority of councillors, I think about 16%, who are signed up to this scheme. Again, we need to get that into perspective.
I also do not recognise the comments made by the noble Baroness in relation to the cost of the mayor and so on providing for their own pensions. I do not see that there is a tax-funded consequence of that, at least not in the same terms as the scheme that applies at the moment. Perhaps I misunderstood that, but I could not see the consequence there. If I have misunderstood, perhaps that will be elucidated later and, if so, I apologise for that.
The second point that is worth making is that there will be a saving in the scheme, and we have to recognise that resources are scarce. I am not sure whether the party opposite is committed to bringing this scheme back in; I have not heard that said. It is one thing to decry this and say it is a bad thing, but I have not heard any commitment to bring it back in. Perhaps there is such a commitment and perhaps that can be clarified, because there is a saving and all parties recognise that there is a deficit that has somehow to be dealt with. Every saving, no matter how small, contributes to dealing with that deficit. It is very easy to say that we approve of measures to tackle the deficit, but the party opposite often falls into the trap of saying it approves of measures to tackle the deficit and when anything specific is brought up to save money, it is always against them. We need to do that and put this into perspective.
My last word is to say again that we are in great danger of castigating volunteers up and down this country who do terrific work without any allowances or pension arrangements. We need to get that on the record.