Public Service Pensions Bill

Alison Seabeck Excerpts

Monday 22nd April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

Clearly, there is some difference in the roles they carry out, but I readily accept that the physical attributes required and the difficulty of the job are similar in each case. That is why I said at the outset that there is no point in trying to debate the difficulties, for example, of one job in the civil fire service in comparison with those in the MOD fire service, but significant differences have developed over time between the pay and conditions, including the pensions, of the civil and the MOD work forces. The hon. Gentleman will see, as I have outlined, that the MOD has committed to consider the issue. My main point is that this Bill deals with approximately 12 million employees and their pensions in the public sector, and that this is not the right occasion for looking at individual terms and conditions in each scheme for each particular work force. There is a time and a place for that—but it is not the debate on this Bill. I do not believe that it is the job of Members here or in the other place to look at the individual terms of each scheme. Rather, we should ensure that the Bill we pass has sufficient flexibilities to ensure that if the NPAs—normal pension ages—or other terms and conditions in the pensions for particular work forces need to be changed at some point in the future, that can be accommodated.

[Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)]

Will the Minister tell us how many meetings he has had with Defence Ministers to discuss the implications for the MOD and how many he has held with the MOD police and fire service trade unions?

[Sajid Javid]

I can tell the hon. Lady that I am not the only Minister in the Treasury working on this issue, as there is a whole team of Ministers, including my noble Friend Lord Newby. Treasury Ministers have had meetings with representatives of the respective work forces and other stakeholders. I would like to plough on—

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Leslie]

That is a very pertinent question. We heard from the Minister that 12 million people were affected by the various public service and civil service pension schemes. We heard that even Lord Hutton, in his detailed inquiry, was not aware of the 350 or so affected individuals, because it was a new scheme that started in 2007, and only some MOD firefighters and police will come into the age bracket. Given the complexity of pensions, it is not surprising that some issues were not spotted; apparently even some employee representatives and others were not aware of the anomaly at the time.

These things happen. Mistakes can be made, but it is really important that when a mistake is pointed out, people assess whether they are big enough to accept that it needs to be corrected and justice is done, or whether their pride is such—whether or not this applies to the civil service—that they try to retrofit their arguments to justify a clearly unjustifiable anomaly. That is what the question boils down to.

The only reason I can see for different treatment for those groups is that one set happens to be employed by the Ministry of Defence and the other is in the public service at large. It is such an evident anomaly that the House of Lords, when made aware of the lacuna, correctly sought to repair the fault in the Bill, but incredibly we heard from the Economic Secretary—I am delighted that he has been joined by the Chief Secretary; perhaps he can be lent on by more enlightened colleagues—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Colchester (Sir Bob Russell) says he will have a go, but he does not have much time as the question will be put shortly. [Interruption.] Anyway, Ministers are not particularly interested in listening to the debate, so it might be useful if the hon. Gentleman could text the Economic Secretary to suggest that he pays attention.

In essence, the Economic Secretary said that the Government were too proud to admit that they had got it wrong. They are still defending the indefensible, but the arguments for admitting the error are overwhelming.

[Alison Seabeck]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that if the Government do not accept some of the changes, some people—albeit a small number—who cannot carry out normal duties will be unable to do the job for which they are being paid? Therefore fewer people will be able to fight fires or to respond in the most physical of circumstances. How does my hon. Friend see the future for those employees?

[Chris Leslie]

Quite a few of those employees already retire before the normal retirement age because of issues of physicality—the sheer effort involved in undertaking such physical tasks. It is entirely unreasonable and unfair that there is such a discrepancy between public service workers who carry out the same job. They are all called on to put their lives on the line. The burden of justifying the anomaly now rests with the Government, but other than some rather unconvincing arguments, which the Minister barely touched on, they have failed to discharge their burden and to illustrate why MOD firefighters and police are so different. The Minister took interventions from many colleagues and on a number of occasions he said, “Oh well, I’ll come to it in my speech,” but amazingly he never did.