Enterprise Bill [HL]
Debate between Lord Hain and Lord Mendelsohn
Lord Hain (Lab)
My Lords, I welcome what the Minister has just said in respect of Wales. I point out to her that that is exactly the argument that I and my noble friend Lady Morgan put forward on the Trade Union Bill when we said that these were devolved matters covering devolved public services and that it was a breach of the devolution settlement that the Trade Union Bill transgressed that. So I am very glad that she has conceded that principle in this Bill.
Lord Mendelsohn
My Lords, the Conservative manifesto introduced this issue, saying that a Conservative Government would legislate to cap redundancy compensation for public sector workers with a particular focus on larger amounts. I will make just a few comments about something that has received some consideration but falls slightly outside that, and it would be useful if the Minister could give some indication of whether the Government were thinking in some way about how to accommodate this. It relates to the nuclear decommissioning workers who entered into an agreement with their employer. To seek to undo that agreement through legislation is slightly unjust, and this is worth looking at.
The new legislation supersedes protections under previous legislation, including the statutory protections introduced under Schedule 8 to the Energy Act 2004, which currently safeguards workers’ pensions, such as those of the Magnox workers. It has been estimated that about 1,200 Magnox workers who are decommissioning the UK’s nuclear plants will be caught out by the proposed measures in the Bill, which could see them losing thousands of pounds in retirement income. The particular reason why these cases are worthy of note is of course that people took on those jobs knowing that it would change their retirement years because they were involved in a job which had an end date which was not the same as their full working life—these were expert workers who made the decision to do it because in compensation the balance of pension payments would in some way adequately reward their commitment to that work. The impact of the Bill could also be felt by many other workers, including the entire 30,000 who are working across the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority’s estate, who will also be affected by a cap of £95,000.
As I understand from the presentation in the manifesto and at other times, the exit cap was to be seen as putting a stop to the so-called golden handshakes or fat-cat pension payouts in the public sector. But it will impact on many long-serving low-paid workers within the nuclear industry. That is why we hope that there will be some opportunity outside the Bill for the Government to look very carefully at the arrangements they have for those who do this difficult, dangerous and very important work and to give some due consideration to that, particularly because their provisions also relate to an agreement that was present in the Energy Act 2004.