Public Service Pensions

Anne Begg Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Danny Alexander]

If agreement is reached, they will. The arrangements that the hon. Lady describes are an important part of the discussions, but they depend on reaching a sustainable agreement on the future of public service pensions along the lines I have set out.

[Dame Anne Begg (Aberdeen South) (Lab)]

I look forward to studying the proposals, because with pensions the devil is always in the detail. I have spoken to public sector workers, and the two things that they are most concerned about—and which might have encouraged them to vote for strike action at the end of November—are the large increase in individual contributions, on top of what they already contribute, and the move from the retail prices index to the consumer prices index. I did not hear from the Chief Secretary’s statement whether those two things remain in place, which would be a disappointment to public sector workers.

[Danny Alexander]

Those two things do remain in place. I understood from a previous debate that the Opposition supported the switch from RPI to CPI. We are going ahead with the increase in member contributions, which, as Lord Hutton said in his interim report, is necessary to rebalance the substantial increase in costs over the past few decades, which have been borne almost entirely by the taxpayer. Around the table with the trade union negotiators, the main issues raised in recent weeks have been the accrual rate, the transitional arrangements and the guarantee that we are reaching a long-term settlement.