Public Service Pensions Bill

Chris Leslie Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is refreshing to have the Minister in this emollient frame of mind. His words suggest a tacit acknowledgment that he has been on the wrong side of the argument to date. I am pleased that the House of Lords continued to insist that the Government should think afresh on the issue. Clearly, there is an unfair disparity between Ministry of Defence and civilian firefighters and police, and every rule of natural justice suggested that that anomaly needed to be addressed.

I make the point in passing that it was a little unwarranted for the Government to tell the Lords that it was not allowed to continue with its point of principle—this was one way of shutting it up—because of financial privilege. Nevertheless, I am glad at the ingenuity of the Lords in keeping the issue alive with their proposal for a review.

The Government could not resist tinkering with that proposal. The Minister has explained why he made some of those changes, but I want to press him for a few reassurances. We welcome the proposal for a review, as broadly agreed by the Lords, but we now need—if you will forgive the pun, Mr Deputy Speaker—to keep the Government’s feet to the fire.

The Government have to address the issue of the physical demands on individual personnel and whether it is reasonable to insist that they should keep working in arduous and dangerous conditions until they are 67. The review has to get the Government and Ministers finally to answer the question about how it can possibly be fair for one set of firefighters and police to work until they are 60 and for MOD staff to work until they are 67. The review should address whether the job description can realistically be fulfilled by those who continue to work into their late 60s.

Ministers have changed the Lords amendment so that it no longer mentions the need for statements of requirements, which are official MOD documents and would address any concerns, especially among heads of forces. However, I think that the Government’s amendment sort of preserves the original meaning. The review should also reveal whether an insistence on staff working until they are 67 would have a perverse effect on the taxpayer, because it might cost more as a result of the numbers forced into early retirement on the grounds of sickness or illness.

I have three principal questions on which I would like the Minister’s reassurance, although he has addressed them in part. First—the hon. Member for Colchester (Sir Bob Russell) alluded to this—the Lords felt that it was important that Treasury Ministers and the Secretary of State for Defence should undertake the review jointly, that it should not be brushed off to one Department or the other, or to a third, independent reviewer, and that it should be the Government’s set of conclusions. Sometimes Treasury documents refer to a Secretary of State and sometimes they refer to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I sensed from what the Minister said that both Departments would be involved in the review. Will he give that reassurance?

Secondly, when will we get the review? The Minister said that it is not normal practice to refer to Royal Assent as the date that triggers the announcement of how many months it will take before reports and reviews will be produced. I am not sure whether I agree with him, but I will go with it on this occasion, given that he has spoken in the spirit of compromise today. He said that the process would start as soon as possible. I got the impression that he was implicitly saying that it would take two months or similar to trigger clause 9 and then six months thereafter. He implied that we would get the review at the end of this calendar year, so it would be helpful if he could confirm that general time frame. He also responded to the intervention by the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) by reassuring us that there will be ongoing consultation with employee representatives.

Thirdly, a source of anxiety since our debate on Monday—the Minister has not touched on this—has been the question of the abatement of MOD firefighter and police pay as part of the necessary adjustment to ensure parity between the civilian and civil service pension schemes. Obviously, it would be unfair to deduct a sum from the pay of MOD firefighters and police at source—that seems to be the case historically—as well as to ask them to pay again when additional contributions begin under the new scheme. Will the Minister assure us that that discrepancy will be properly addressed in the review? The risk of a duplication of contributions would be unfair and there is some anxiety about this. The level of the abatement needs properly to reflect the relative value of benefits in the new scheme. This is a complex point, but it would help if the Minister could assure us that the abatement issue will be drawn to a conclusion.