Financial Assistance Scheme (Increased Cap for Long Service) Regulations 2018

Baroness Buscombe Excerpts

Monday 22nd January 2018 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Buscombe]

That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 18 December 2017 be approved.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Buscombe) (Con)]

My Lords, these regulations will increase assistance payments for members of the Financial Assistance Scheme who may have been disproportionately affected by the cap on the amount of assistance payable to an individual member under the scheme. The cap is set at age 65 and is currently £34,229, reduced if a member opts to receive their assistance early. The cap helps to limit the costs of the Financial Assistance Scheme, which is funded by general taxation.

Individuals accrue high pensions for two reasons. Some were high earners, in which case they have generally had opportunities to secure alternative savings for retirement. Others have worked for a significant proportion of their working life to build up a pension with their employer and, consequently, may have little or no other private pension savings to offset against the shortfall between the capped assistance and what they had expected from the scheme. This change will benefit the second group of people.

Plainly put, these regulations will make changes to legislation to increase the current Financial Assistance Scheme cap for those with long service in a single eligible pension scheme. The provisions increase the cap by 3% for each full year of pensionable service over 20 years, subject to a new maximum of double the standard Financial Assistance Scheme cap. The new provisions will ensure that Financial Assistance Scheme members with long service will receive assistance which reflects a higher proportion of their accrued pension benefits.

It is estimated that 290 FAS members will benefit from the introduction of the regulations over the lifetime of the Financial Assistance Scheme. Although that is not many people, it is a significant proportion of the 500 people estimated to be affected by the cap. The change is expected to be widely welcomed by Financial Assistance Scheme members with long service, and their families.

Around £1.5 trillion is held under management in defined benefit pension schemes, which helps to fuel the UK economy through investment in UK government bonds, corporate bonds and equities. The pensions provided by these schemes are on average £7,000 per annum, which can be a vital source of income for around 11 million current and future pensioners. The majority of nearly 6,000 defined benefit pension schemes are run effectively, and we are fortunate to have a robust and flexible system of pension regulation in the UK. However, recent events affecting a number of high-profile schemes have shown that, while a robust system is in place, schemes can fail, and it was right to implement the regime of pension protection provided by the Financial Assistance Scheme and the Pension Protection Fund.

The Pension Protection Fund provides compensation for pension scheme members whose employer became insolvent on or after 6 April 2005; the Financial Assistance Scheme provides assistance to members of schemes that started to wind up before that date. From its commencement, the Financial Assistance Scheme was criticised for providing less generous support than the Pension Protection Fund. However significant improvements have been made to the scheme by successive Governments.

On 6 April 2017, provisions for a long service cap were implemented in the Pension Protection Fund, and these regulations introduce a similar long service cap to the Financial Assistance Scheme. We estimate that the long service cap will increase the overall cost of the Financial Assistance Scheme payments by approximately £1.2 million per year in the first eight years before starting to slowly decrease over the following years. Unlike the Pension Protection Fund, which is funded by the residual assets topped up by a levy on pension schemes, the Financial Assistance Scheme is funded by general taxation.

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[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this brief debate. What I sense is a general welcome for these regulations. I shall do my utmost to try to respond to a number of questions that were put forward, particularly by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie. I am not sure whether my pen could work fast enough for me to respond to all the questions and if there is anything I leave out, which I suspect there may be, I will endeavour to write to all noble Lords to fill in the detail.

Perhaps I may reiterate that the important thing about the regulations is responding to the policy, which, importantly, is to treat members of the Pension Protection Fund and the Financial Assistance Scheme as consistently as possible, where possible. The long-service cap for the Pension Protection Fund came into force on 6 April 2017. These regulations will introduce an equivalent long-service cap for the Financial Assistance Scheme. This cap applies to any pension that is in payment or will be paid. For example, if a member’s pension from their scheme was £39,000 a year and that scheme could not pay anything, the Financial Assistance Scheme would work out as 90% of that £39,000, which is £35,100. As the Financial Assistance Scheme cannot pay more than the cap amount which applies to the member, the member in this example would receive £34,229.

Following the introduction of the long service cap, Financial Assistance Scheme members will have their cap increased by 3% for each full year of pensionable service above 20 years when they first become entitled to payments from the Financial Assistance Scheme, subject to a new maximum of double the standard cap. Only a full year of pensionable service will be counted. Part years will not be included in the calculation.

The increase is applied to the cap amount in place for the member at the time assistance is first put into payment. The increase is not backdated and takes effect from the member’s first payday on or after the regulations come into force, currently expected to be implemented on 6 April 2018. From 1 April 2018, the basic cap amount will be increased to £35,256.

In response to the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, it is important to emphasise that all members of the Financial Assistance Scheme will receive 90% of the maximum, while PPF members who are already in retirement will receive 100%. The assistance is calculated differently.

I was asked to comment on the difference between actual and expected pensions. The Financial Assistance Scheme is not intended to meet all pension costs; it is 90% of pension costs subject to the cap. I will write to the noble Lord to give some detail on the difference between actual and expected pensions.

I hear what my noble friend Lady Altman says about the assets of an insolvent company being passed to the Pension Protection Fund, which administers both schemes, but the Financial Assistance Scheme is funded through general taxation. The long service cap will increase the overall cost of Financial Assistance Scheme payments by approximately £1.2 million a year in the first eight years before starting to decrease slowly. The actual costs will depend on a number of factors, including pensioner deaths and the fact that the Financial Assistance Scheme closed to new schemes in September 2016. The actual costs in future years may be lower than the £1.2 million quoted. The Financial Assistance Scheme has paid £1.1 billion to March 2017. The assets are passed to the PPF.

The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, asked why 3% was chosen as the escalation amount. It was chosen because we believe it is sufficient to lift a substantial number of the target group out of the compensation cap entirely, while still being affordable for the taxpayer. Lower percentages did not achieve this outcome. Of the 500 people affected by the cap, 290 will benefit from this measure.

On the Hampshire legal challenge going to the Court of Justice of the European Union, the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, is correct. A hearing in the European Court of Justice is set for 8 March 2018. For the benefit of all noble Lords, this legal challenge by Mr Hampshire contends that article 8 of the EU insolvency directive requires the UK to ensure that every pension scheme member gets at least 50% of their accrued benefits in the event of the insolvency of the sponsoring employer.

It is possible for the capped amount of compensation or assistance to be less than 50% of the member’s accrued pension, for example where a member has a large pension due to a high salary and/or long service within the same pension scheme. However, we believe the numbers affected to be very low. Only around 400 PPF and 500 FAS members are currently affected by the cap, which represents around 0.3% of the total membership of both schemes as at April 2017. We estimate that a very small proportion of these capped members are not receiving at least 50% of their accrued pension, and the increased FAS cap for long service will further reduce the number of members affected.

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[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

What struck me when I looked at the data was that for the last year, up to March 2016, there were still some 23 schemes transferred into FAS, notwithstanding that it was 10 years or more since the obligation to commence winding up. If I understand correctly and there were 23 schemes for that period, how many were left out of the subsequent period and have been chopped off? This is particularly an issue if the failure—if it is a failure—to pick up that detail was with the trustees or the scheme administrator, because the consequence would fall on the individual member of the scheme.

[Baroness Buscombe]

I understand the question posed by the noble Lord; indeed, when I was discussing this with officials, I was amazed that it took 10 years. To begin with, I could not understand why the scheme closed to new entrants as late as 2016. I cannot say whether the figure of 23 schemes is correct for the final year but I will check and respond to the noble Lord; I shall seek to find out how many were left out and how many individuals might thereby have lost out. I also have a little more information regarding Tata: because this provision applies to schemes wound up before 2005, it is relevant not to Tata but to the PPF scheme.

The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, asked why the Government have taken so long to introduce the long service cap. There have been significant reforms to pension legislation over the last few years, and the introduction of the FAS long service cap is the latest change in a programme of work to treat members of the FAS and PPF schemes more consistently. I hope the noble Lord will accept that pension legislation is complex. It was important that we consulted on draft FAS long service cap regulations to ensure that the legislation operated as intended and did not have any unintended consequences. As a result, December 2017 was the earliest that we could lay the regulations. I appreciate that members of the FAS will be frustrated by the perceived delay but we had a legal obligation to consult on the regulations. The public consultation helpfully identified some small changes that were required to ensure that the regulations operate as intended for eligible FAS members.

We also had to ensure—I think this brings us on to the next question posed by the noble Lord—that the costs were proportionate and to structure the long service cap to ensure that no further costs would be incurred. The noble Lord was very concerned about the administrative cost. I share that concern; it seems like an enormous amount of money for the relatively few people affected. At least I can confirm that the costs are less than had first been forecast. It would be fair to say from the department’s perspective that we are continually looking at where costs can be kept to a minimum, not least because those costs fall on the taxpayer.

While in the past there has been much criticism and scepticism around the introduction of digital systems to support more effective, efficient and cost-effective systems for the administration of such schemes, it is fair to say that systems are proving more robust as technology advances and becomes more understood by users. However, it is incumbent on all of us to keep an eye on that in terms of ensuring that we do all that we can to reduce costs. The trouble is that we are talking about checking records of individuals. That takes time and sometimes it is easier to do manually for such a small number of people. I accept the noble Lord’s point: in some ways, one might question whether it is simpler and more cost effective to do it manually. I take very much on board what he has said.

With regard to transaction costs, going on from what I have just said—sorry to string this out—the PPF, which administers the FAS, is currently in-sourcing member data from Capita. The FAS data is currently out of date, incomplete and often paper-based, requiring manual processing and checking, and that is not a one-off cost. We should continue to look at that and encourage those who administer the scheme to do the same, although I am sure they are cognisant of these considerable costs.

The regulations will ensure that individuals who have worked hard for a single employer for many years are not penalised by the cap. This group of savers have built up a large pension pot, not because they are high earners but because they have worked for one employer for the majority of their working lives and, as a result, will not have had the opportunity to secure additional income in retirement.

The decision to increase the total amount of assistance that this group can receive has not been taken lightly, as the Financial Assistance Scheme is funded by the taxpayer. As my noble friend Lady Altmann said, a considerable amount of consultation, lobbying, and so on, was undertaken to encourage the Government to introduce the regulations. But to leave the situation unchanged would create an inequitable situation where those with long service in the Pension Protection Fund were treated more favourably than those in the Financial Assistance Scheme and break our commitment made in another place on 15 September 2016.

I reassure all noble Lords that no new funding commitments have been or will be made in respect of the scheme. Since 2005, employer insolvencies have fallen under the jurisdiction of the Pension Protection Fund. Unlike the Financial Assistance Scheme, the Pension Protection Fund is mainly funded by an industry levy and is therefore not reliant on the public purse.

I believe that the correct balance has been struck between securing meaningful income in retirement for members compensated by the Financial Assistance Scheme and the cost to the taxpayer. I have outlined in detail the issues that the regulations will address and why the Government have decided to act. Now is the right time to correct this problem, and I ask that the Motion be approved.

Motion agreed.