Public Service Pensions Bill

Baroness Harris of Richmond Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd April 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Eatwell]

My Lords, I beg to move the manuscript amendment on the Marshalled List. We were told last night—that is to say, at the last minute—that the Government intended to assert financial privilege over our attempt to achieve fairness for the members of the Defence Fire and Rescue Service and the Ministry of Defence Police. We have learnt that the Government know they have lost the argument when they assert financial privilege. However, it is worth examining what this financial privilege is being asserted over. The noble Lord quoted the possible cost to the Government as £10 million. We had the opportunity to take actuarial advice overnight and the figure is a maximum of £2 million. So the Government are asserting financial privilege over the magnificent sum of £2 million per year and are using that argument to prevent the debate on your Lordships’ amendments, which would have achieved fairness for Ministry of Defence firefighters and police by equalising their retirement age with those of other police and fire services.

The amendment I have tabled requires a review of the impact of these measures on the Defence Fire and Rescue Service and Ministry of Defence Police. We want to know the impact on the health and well-being of these members, particularly because there is substantial evidence that the vast majority of members of the fire service and police are required to retire before the age of 60, because they can no longer meet the Ministry of Defence statements of requirements for these personnel. In effect, they are stood down for health reasons already. What is striking is that the Government have not taken the cost of people retiring early through ill health into account in their calculations of the overall impact. Indeed, the cost calculations are simplistic in the extreme.

The other area that we are particularly concerned about is whether early retirement due to inability to meet exacting standards is taken into account in considering the settled retirement age. The noble Lord again raised this issue of fixing the retirement age of this group of workers at 65 and not letting it creep up in future years, as anticipated in the Bill. I hope that the Government will dismiss these thoughts from their mind and instead concentrate on achieving fairness. I refer the noble Lord to the speech made by my noble friend Lord Hutton of Furness when we considered this matter on Report. He stated that,

“this is fundamentally a matter of fairness”.—[Official Report, 12/2/13; col. 570.]

As noble Lords may remember, my noble friend also pointed out that if he had known about this anomaly when he produced his report on public service pensions, he would have included the MoD firefighters and police within his general recommendations for those who would have a retirement age of 60. My noble friend Lord Hutton told us that this was simply a mistake on his part and that he wanted the House to have the opportunity to correct that mistake.

I am grateful to the Government for accepting our amendment and our request for a review of the circumstances of MoD firefighters and police, but I wonder if the noble Lord could answer a number of questions for me. For example, have the Government sought the views of the heads of the MoD fire service and police force? What do the heads of these services actually think about the Government’s proposal not to equalise the retirement age of their men and women to the retirement age of other police and firefighters?

Moreover, the noble Lord made quite a point about the difference in conditions of the pension scheme that the MoD police and fire services are currently in and the pension scheme to which they might transfer. He referred to the Civil Service Compensation Scheme, to which they have access. How many times in the past two years have MoD firefighters and police accessed this scheme? Why did they do so and what has been the outcome of their application?

In moving this amendment, I seek to give this House the opportunity to debate once again, on a report by the Government, this particular anomaly in the Public Service Pensions Bill. We wish to be clear on the impact on the health and well-being of members of the Defence Fire and Rescue Service and the Ministry of Defence Police. We wish to be clear on the circumstances under which the firefighters and police meet, or fail to meet, the Ministry of Defence’s statement of requirements for its personnel. We also want to be clear on the cost to the taxpayer of the early retirement which has become such a standard characteristic of service in these professions because of the failure, through advancing years—which I understand, as I am sure many of us do—of the firefighters and police to meet the requirements of service.

[Baroness Harris of Richmond]

My Lords, I had not necessarily intended to participate in this debate, knowing that the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, had put down an amendment which I wholeheartedly approve and agree to. I am very pleased that the Government have decided to accept it, especially after all the work that was done in trying to persuade them about the Ministry of Defence fire service and the Ministry of Defence police. I emphasise this point because it is tantamount to having made them accept that this really must be looked at again, and I think it was the work that was done in Committee in this House that made this happen. Like the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, I was surprised to find that financial privilege had been put forward as the reason not to accept something a little stronger. So I can assure my noble friend the Minister that during the year that this amendment will be looked at, mulled over and digested, we will be looking very carefully to see the progress that is made and to make sure, through questions and other means, that we keep the Government’s feet to the fire.

[Lord Whitty]

My Lords, I join the noble Baroness in congratulating the Minister on his change of heart. He has in effect very graciously recognised not only the justice of the case that we on this side of the House, and the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, put in Committee, but that it is pretty absurd for the Government simply to claim financial privilege to resist an amendment that manifestly will bring justice and equity to an extremely special group of workers, putting them on the same basis as people who are doing almost exactly the same job but who are employed by other public sector employers.

I suspect the Minister had some difficulty with the Treasury and the Ministry of Defence in reaching this conclusion. I therefore doubly congratulate him on seeing it through and at least recognising the very difficult position we all find ourselves in. We cannot really resist the Commons claiming financial privilege, but we can ensure by my noble friend’s amendment that the Government think again about this and address the real issues.

I do hope, however, that the Government do not make a habit of using financial privilege to resist a principled amendment from this House that has a minimal cost even in the Government’s terms and, as my noble friend has said, that is probably actuarially inaccurate in any case. If the Government continue to do this, this House has some serious thinking to do about how seriously our amendments and our scrutiny are taken. However, I return to my congratulations to the Minister on seeing sense over this. I hope it is a precedent that will be followed by some of his other colleagues in future.