Local Government Pensions Scheme (Transitional Provisions, Savings and Amendment) Regulations 2014

Baroness Stowell of Beeston Excerpts

Tuesday 13th May 2014 Lords Chamber

My Government should not be proposing this unnecessary, mean and petty move. If the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, presses the Motion to a vote—and I recognise that it is not entirely his choice—with considerable sadness, I will vote for it.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)]

My Lords, I start by paying tribute to councillors and the work that they do. Unlike all noble Lords who have contributed to today’s debate, I have never been a councillor or worked in local government, but my granddad was a councillor in Beeston during the late 1940s and early 1950s. I never knew him but, when I was a little girl and out with my dad, older people in Beeston would often remark that they had known my granddad and tell me about some of the things that he had achieved for the people of Beeston. They never mentioned politics or his party, but they were very keen to reinforce that he had changed things for the better as a councillor.

Unlike me, other DCLG Ministers have direct experience of local government. All have been councillors and many of them have been leaders of councils; that includes my noble friend and respected predecessor Lady Hanham, who was leader of Kensington and Chelsea and also my noble friend Lady Williams of Trafford, who was with me on the Front Bench earlier. She takes her title from the council that she led. They know what it is like to be a councillor. They understand what it means to represent people locally and the importance of that role. They know that it extends from being at the front line of a national crisis, such as the recent floods, to spending hours every week listening to local people and doing what they can to help on matters that may seem minor to outsiders but are of major importance to those affected.

I had the privilege—and I do underscore that word—to hear my right honourable friend the Secretary of State Eric Pickles pay tribute to councillors with real enthusiasm at the LGA’s annual reception in Parliament only the other week. I have heard him in private in ministerial meetings, particularly during the flooding crisis, stand up for councillors and all that they were doing at that time. I reiterate to noble Lords and to the House this afternoon that everyone in the Department for Communities and Local Government understands and respects the work of councillors. All of us understand that councillors do all this excellent work voluntarily as elected representatives of local people.

This debate relates to the provision in the Local Government Pension Scheme (Transitional Provisions, Savings and Amendment) Regulations, which, as we have heard, excludes councillors and other elected local officeholders from membership of the new Local Government Pension Scheme. It may be helpful to highlight to noble Lords that those regulations also serve a broader purpose. In June 2010, the Government invited the noble Lord, Lord Hutton of Furness, to chair the Independent Public Service Pensions Commission. The purpose of the commission was to carry out a fundamental structural review of public service pension provision and to make recommendations on pension arrangements that would be sustainable and affordable in the long term. Further to the commission’s recommendations, I am pleased to be able to tell noble Lords that the new scheme for local government workers came into operation, on time, on 1 April this year. Importantly, the design of the new scheme will ensure that the large number of low-paid workers in local government will continue to have access to good pension arrangements that are affordable for them.

The new Local Government Pension Scheme, like its predecessor, is an occupational pension scheme intended for employees, who make a contribution alongside the employer’s contribution, which is paid by taxpayers. This Government do not believe that councillors, as representatives elected locally to hold town halls to account and to serve local people, should be in a pension scheme designed for employees. It is on this point of principle that Ministers take a fundamentally different view to the previous Administration. We do not believe it is right to blur the line between council staff and elected councillors.

That point has been heard before and has been referred to by noble Lords during the debate this afternoon; indeed, my noble friend Lady Hanham reinforced the point in her contribution. Contrary to the contributions of noble Lords today, it seems that the vast majority of councillors agree with this Government, because only 16% of councillors in England are part of the Local Government Pension Scheme. To put it another way, only 30% of those eligible to join are members of the scheme. This Government want all councillors to have the full opportunity to demonstrate, as the vast majority already do, that they are independent and not reliant on the municipal payroll.

We made our position clear when we first announced the proposals in December 2012. I was not going to make this point, but as my noble friend Lord Tope said with tongue in cheek that this was a good day to bury bad news, it is worth reminding noble Lords that he said that because the previous Government announced their decision to provide access to the Local Government Pension Scheme on the day of 9/11. I hope that my noble friend is not seriously saying that the last working day before Christmas—a day when we were in any case publishing the local government financial settlement in documents which all people interested in local government activity were waiting for—is the same as 9/11. When we announced our intentions, Ministers indicated the Government’s view that councillors’ ongoing membership of the Local Government Pension Scheme was not appropriate. The Government’s direction of travel has been clear since then.

The Government have, of course, sought views on this change. Between April and June last year, we consulted with a wide range of interested parties. Although the consultation made clear the Government’s preferred position, it also invited respondents to offer evidence about the impact of the change and to suggest alternative proposals. It is fair to say, as noble Lords have made clear this afternoon, that a majority of respondents did not support the Government’s proposals. Many—particularly some councillors and those representing them—felt strongly that they should be able to continue to be members of the Local Government Pension Scheme. However, it is worth pointing out to noble Lords that only 472 individual councillors felt moved to write as part of the consultation to express their opposition, which is fewer than 3% of the around 18,000 councillors in England.

We have heard today some reasons why those who oppose these changes do so, but it is important to go back to the previous Labour Government’s decision to make it possible for councillors to access the scheme and the reason they outlined for making this change and creating this access. In his Written Ministerial Statement in 2003, Nick Raynsford talked about the change being brought in to address what he described as disincentives. This change was intended to incentivise more people to come forward to stand as councillors but, as I have already said, only 16% of all councillors in England have taken up the offer. If the previous Government decided to make this change to provide an incentive, it clearly has not succeeded. If it was about incentive, then why have more councils and councillors not decided to take up the opportunity?

The LGA and some noble Lords have argued that, if we withdraw access to the scheme, people will not put themselves forward to be councillors. We disagree with that and, indeed, are not aware of any strong evidence that offering access to the scheme has resulted in any change in the number of people putting themselves forward for public service. Similarly, we are not aware of any strong evidence that ending access to the scheme will limit the number of people standing for local election.

I note in particular the point raised by my noble friend Lord Shipley and other noble Lords about the upcoming local elections. I think it was one of my noble friends who suggested that this change was somehow an insult to those who were minded to put themselves forward and that we were doing something that would deter people. The facts do not bear that out. In the forthcoming local council elections in England, we see an extra 1,000 candidates standing compared to when those seats were last fought—an additional 1,000 people have decided it is worth their while to put themselves forward to represent local people even though they will no longer be able to access the Local Government Pension Scheme. People become councillors because they want to serve their communities, because they want to change things or because they may have clear, strong political beliefs.

The leader of the Opposition in the other place, Mr Miliband, has tabled an Early Day Motion calling not only for councillors to be reinstated in the scheme, as the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, does today, but for annulling the new pension arrangements in toto—the new arrangements that will benefit low-paid local government workers. My noble friend Lord Bourne made the point that these changes that the Government are introducing are providing some savings. I am happy to acknowledge that the savings are modest, but they are none the less savings. It is important for us to understand whether the Labour Opposition are now committing to reinstating councillors’ access to the Local Government Pension Scheme, were they to be elected. It would be interesting to know, when the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, comes to respond, whether that is something they will be campaigning on in the remaining few days before the local elections on 22 May.

This Government do not believe that people choose to enter local public life in order to have access to the Local Government Pension Scheme. I know that no one in this debate is suggesting otherwise. However, given the focus and energy that has been spent on this issue, I worry that there is a risk that we give the public the impression that this is the case. We need to be quite careful on this matter.

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[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

Could the Minister clear up the point about whether the Mayor will stay in as a police and crime commissioner?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

As Mayor of London, some of his functions are similar to those of police and crime commissioners. However, he is not regarded as a police and crime commissioner for the purposes of the Local Government Pension Scheme. His status is as mayor and not as a PCC.

[Lord Beecham]

Why are police and crime commissioners treated differently?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

The point about police and crime commissioners—this is an area which, in due course, we will want to examine—is that, since they were recently created, we felt that it was not appropriate to make this change at this time. I do not assume that it will be something that will be left unattended for ever.

My noble friend Lord True asked, when we were talking about savings, about the publicity budget for my department. He suggested that somebody in the Box would have the answer. Because I have a great bunch of officials with me, yes, indeed, I do have the answer, which is £2.5 million—which I would guess is a whole lot less than it was under the previous Government.

I can assure the House that the Government did not take this decision lightly. We certainly looked carefully at transitional arrangements for those councillors who are in the pension scheme. I note that the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, dismissed the concessions that we made following consultation that will see that existing members will leave the scheme only at the end of their existing fixed four-year term of office. That means that councillors’ membership of the scheme will be phased out between 2014 and 2017 and that no change to the reasonable expectations that councillors had when they ran for their fixed term will be made. I can also confirm to my noble friend Lord Vinson that he is right that nothing will stop councillors contributing to a personal private pension in future, but the key point is that they will not be able to join a scheme to which taxpayers contribute as their employers.

I firmly believe that the best thing we can do to encourage more people to take part in municipal public life is to decentralise power to local communities so that being a councillor is an even more meaningful and rewarding role. We need to attract and retain a wide range of enthusiastic councillors, and I agree with noble Lords who said that this is important. When we are talking about ensuring that we have a wide range of councillors—in fact my noble friend is back with me on the Front Bench—it is worth noting that one of her successors as leader of Trafford Council is 26 years old, comes from a modest background and put himself through university. It is simply not true to suggest that people do not want to put themselves forward to become councillors.

The reason we are starting to attract a wide range of people is that this Government have made many changes to local authorities that mean that councillors are in a greater position to deliver change. For example, we have abolished the Audit Commission and government offices. This means that councillors can rightly focus on meeting the needs of local people, rather than spending their time dancing to the tune of central government. We have introduced new rights for communities to lead and deliver change, including through neighbourhood planning. This gives exciting opportunities for councillors to support and encourage local people to help them deliver their own aspirations.

The noble Lord may laugh, but neighbourhood plans are seeing a fantastic turnout at referendums, when local people know that, as a result of getting engaged, they will see change and will be able to take control of decisions in their local area. We have introduced the general power of competence. This means that councillors now have greater scope to do things to meet local people’s needs. We have helped councillors better represent their constituents and better enrich local democratic debate by scrapping the Standards Board and clarifying the rules on predetermination. These are just a few examples of the steps this Government have taken to strengthen the contribution that councillors can make to their communities.

The LGA briefing note that was distributed to noble Lords prior to this afternoon’s debate said that,

“76% of people trust their local councillor the most to make decisions about how services are provided in their areas”.

That is great news, and the reason for that kind of result is that councillors have the power to lead their communities, to speak for their communities and to deliver for their communities. That is a very good thing.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, I start by thanking all noble Lords who contributed to this debate. I apologise to the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, for being remiss in not recognising her first appearance on the Front Bench on CLG matters. Despite the fact that this is an emotive subject, the debate has been fulsome, knowledgeable and very measured.

We recognise that the Minister today paid fulsome tribute to the role of councillors, but part of the problem with this whole issue is that some of her colleagues did not display the same attitude, and certainly not in presenting and developing the pensions issue that we are discussing today. Also, the concept that somehow people are rushing to stand for election because of the abolition of the Audit Commission is a little far-fetched. The issue about the numbers of people standing is not perhaps so much whether there are new people wanting to come forward but how many people are not standing who stood before because of the financial pressures and challenges of being in local government today. We have not heard anything new from the Minister—that is not to be expected, perhaps—in justification of the policy the Government are pursuing here.

On this issue of not being reliant on the municipal payroll, if there is not some basis for elected members to earn a living, will we not end up in a situation where only the rich, the retired and—less so these days—those with benevolent employers who are happy to give their employees lots of time off can serve in local government? There must be some form of remuneration. Is not the issue about pensions the general point that if we encourage people in all other spheres to save for a private pension because the state will not be able to produce enough for them to have a full retirement, why—in the words in particular of the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, who is not in his place—are councillors being discriminated against in that respect?

I will pick up on some comments from other noble Lords. I think all but two who spoke were in support of the proposition before us today. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, raised a very important point about the mayor and PCCs, although that has been clarified. The noble Lord, Lord Bourne, reminded us that we should be careful about how we use the term “volunteer”, and I take that point. The problem is that the Government, in characterising what local councillors do as “volunteering” in the same category as some of the work done in the voluntary sector, undervalue, underestimate and do not recognise the role and responsibilities that councillors undertake in the modern era. That is the key point.

The noble Lord asked whether we would commit to bringing this back, and I think the Minister said that we were in favour of scrapping the 2014 revised scheme. Was that what she said?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

The point I made was that that EDM that the Leader of the Opposition in the other place tabled goes beyond the narrow scope of the regret Motion that the noble Lord tabled today and prays against the regs completely.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

Let me make it absolutely clear that it is my party’s position that we support the revised Local Government Pension Scheme. So far as these arrangements are concerned and whether we would reinstate this, I cannot give a blanket commitment that we would. No incoming Government would do that without looking across the piece at all the things that must be addressed. More particularly, the Local Government Pension Scheme is currently under consultation to restructure on a more effective, collaborative basis. That is part of the Government’s consultation. We do not yet know how and where that will lead. Also, the consequence of the Government’s position is that councillors will be driven into the private pensions market. How readily that can be unpicked would be a real issue as well, particularly because small pension pots stranded in private sector schemes cannot be transferred back into the local government scheme. A raft of issues would, quite properly, need to be considered.

My noble friend Lord Beecham, with his usual incisive approach, reminded us that Conservative legislation laid the groundwork for some of these proposals and that it depends upon independent panels enabling members to become part of the Local Government Pension Scheme at the moment.