Superannuation Bill

Annette Brooke Excerpts

Tuesday 7th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

Indeed. I will say more about the relationship between the negotiations and the Bill in a little while. The aim would be to have a whole new negotiated scheme that would make this Bill redundant. Sadly, however, the experience of the last Government shows that it is impossible to place absolute reliance on the ability to achieve total consensus on that. Proper additional protection for the lower paid is a central part of our aim in the negotiations. I will say briefly as well that the other side of that coin should be a cap on payments for the highest paid. Again, it seems to us that basic fairness requires that.

Our second goal in the negotiations is to negotiate a higher cap for voluntary redundancy schemes. It is the essence of most redundancy schemes that there should be scope for voluntary redundancy terms to be more generous than those for compulsory redundancy. However, I would like to make it clear, if it needs to be made clear, that no one wants redundancies at all, but if they are unavoidable, which sadly I believe they will be—they were under the last Government, and in the current fiscal environment, they are even more likely—it will surely be much better to be able to offer more generous voluntary redundancy terms. That is simply impossible under the current scheme, because of its unaffordably generous terms.

We have made some progress in the talks, but they have not yet delivered an approach that is agreeable to all the unions involved and to the Government. If we can secure agreement with the civil service unions to introduce a comprehensive new scheme, we will implement that package rapidly. Until we reach that point, however, we would be failing in our duty to the tax-paying public—and to lower-paid workers outside the civil service who daily confront much less generous terms—if we were to allow the excesses of the current scheme to continue unchecked.

That is why we have introduced a Bill to limit the size of compensation payments. It has only two clauses, which cap the amounts payable under the current scheme. The first creates caps on the level of payment possible. Staff who depart on voluntary terms will receive payments calculated under the current terms, but limited to a maximum of 15 months’ pay. For those leaving on being formally dismissed—effectively, compulsory redundancy—the limit will be 12 months’ pay. Where the civil service compensation scheme terms provide for early retirement instead of or in addition to a severance payment, the total value of the package will be subjected to the same cap of 12 or 15 months’ pay. In these cases, if the actuarially assessed cost of the total package exceeds the appropriate cap, the Bill provides that those individuals will instead receive 12 months’ salary—or 15 months’ salary in the case of voluntary departures—and no change to their pension entitlement.

[Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

Could the Minister please explain the rationale for proposing these particular terms, which are so much worse than those that were almost agreed before?

[Mr Maude]

My hon. Friend says that those terms were “almost agreed”, but that was far from being the case. In fact, one of the trade unions refused to agree to them, sought judicial review and had the agreement quashed. Given that one of the unions had refused to contemplate agreeing to the relatively modest—if we are honest—changes to the current scheme, it would be unrealistic to assume that we could then go back and say, “Oh, PCS, please feel completely differently, and please execute a rapid volte face from your position of a few months ago.” I take the view that the previous Government took, which is that the situation is not sustainable, and that one union cannot be allowed to stand in the way of necessary reform. That is why we have introduced the Bill, and why we are engaged in a concurrent process of negotiation, through which we genuinely want to achieve a long-term, sustainable settlement.