Arcadia Pension Fund

Baroness Drake Excerpts

Tuesday 8th December 2020 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Drake]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure that the Arcadia pension fund receives all of the contributions and assets agreed between its owners, any trustees and The Pension Regulator.

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

As Arcadia has now gone into administration, the Pension Protection Fund, working with the Pensions Regulator, will now act in place of the trustees and will negotiate on behalf of the scheme to ensure that it is treated fairly compared to other creditors and gets what it is due. If the regulator thinks there has been wrongdoing, it may also be able to use its anti-avoidance powers to get redress.

[Baroness Drake (Lab) [V]]

I thank the Minister for her reply, but it gives little assurance on the £210 million of security agreed with Arcadia getting to the actual schemes. Covid has a major impact, yet large pension deficits have not just built up over the past nine months but over years, and there will be other companies who took out dividends and assets to a value much greater than deficit recovery payments made, leaving their pension schemes more vulnerable than they should be. Will the Government consider urgent amendments to the Companies Act so that directors’ duties to shareholders are subject to a responsibility to repair deficits to pension schemes? We will otherwise have endless cases such as Arcadia recurring.