Defined-benefit Pension Schemes

Debate between David Drew and Laura Smith

Tuesday 10th July 2018 Westminster Hall

[Laura Smith (Crewe and Nantwich) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered protecting defined-benefit pension schemes.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone, and to introduce this important debate. I welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) and the Minister; their presence underlines the importance of this issue.

There are few more precious assets than a pension. Pensions are not benefits; they are deferred wages deducted from the previous earnings of responsible working people who decided to save diligently during their working life, in return for financial security in retirement. As we all know, the funds that are made up of those savings invest huge amounts in our economy, as well as providing for our pensioners in retirement. Dignity in later life is something that every Member present values immensely. We should all feel duty-bound to do everything we possibly can to guarantee that for each and every pensioner in our country, without exception.

Let me begin by stating from the outset that I am no expert on pensions. I have called this debate because it is of the utmost importance to workers in my constituency. I believe that will be the case for all Members here today. It is incumbent on us all to develop our understanding of the key issues to ensure that the livelihoods of pensioners up and down our country are safeguarded, and to ensure dignity in later life for all.

Providing our pensioners with an income that they can live on comfortably is a key pillar of dignity in later life. The fight against pensioner poverty must therefore include a determined effort to provide the highest quality pensions in the most secure and sustainable way. Defined-benefit pension schemes have offered some workers precisely that for many years. The attractiveness of an affordable scheme that enables them to plan their retirement by knowing in advance precisely how much they will be paid is undoubtedly a key factor for many workers when choosing their employer. If we are to encourage more workers to save, responsible choices must be rewarded. Any pension fund deficits that arise are certainly not the fault of the scheme member, who has simply chosen to sacrifice pay today for pension tomorrow so that they have an adequate income after they retire. We must certainly avoid sending any message that deters current and future generations of workers from saving for retirement.

This issue is particularly topical in my constituency. Not only are many workers affected by the recent collapse of Carillion; more than 1,000 workers at Bentley Motors are in discussions with their employer about the future, and potential closure, of their DB scheme. Former Rolls-Royce employees, some of whom have been paying into the scheme for almost 50 years, face the prospect of serious financial hardship in retirement, with the potential to lose hundreds of thousands of pounds. The younger workers in the scheme stand to lose the most. I will come on to intergenerational unfairness towards the end of my speech, but I would welcome a commitment from the Minister to discuss this particular case with me in the near future, to see what support he can give to scheme members in Crewe and Nantwich.

Auto-enrolment has been a success in that it has increased the number of workers saving for retirement, so I applaud the Government’s continued efforts in that respect. However, auto-enrolment cannot be seen by employers as a retreat in which they can hide from their responsibilities under existing DB schemes. DB schemes appear to be working well—the Minister said so in his address to the TUC earlier this year. He also said that where employers can, they should continue their responsibilities. I wholeheartedly agree with him. Research by Mercer published earlier this month suggested that DB pension deficits at FTSE 350 organisations have more than halved since January. In 2015, FTSE 100 companies paid around five times as much in dividends as they did in contributions to their DB pension schemes.

The Green Paper that the Government published last year states that in 2015, companies with a DB pension scheme deficit paid out £53 billion in dividends—25% more than their disclosed deficits. It therefore seems logical to conclude that those companies have the ability immediately to repair their pension scheme deficits by feeding dividends into deficit repair contributions.

I do not pretend that there are no issues with individual DB schemes, but in aggregate such schemes do not appear to be inherently unaffordable. We must remember that they provide decent, good-value pensions. Defined-contribution schemes require much larger contributions to have a realistic chance of providing benefits equivalent to those paid by DB schemes. The value of the pot in a DB scheme is far higher in nearly every case, and both scheme members and their employer will have paid less for it.

There also appears to be an issue with overly risk-averse assumptions threatening DB schemes. Pensions Regulator guidance allows schemes to base the discount rate on the rate of return that assets held by the fund are expected to generate over the lifetime of the scheme, yet trustees seem reluctant to use that method. There is concern that the corporate failure of Carillion will create an even more risk-averse climate.

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

I apologise for missing the start of my hon. Friend’s excellent speech. Does she agree that one of the issues is that the Pensions Regulator is unaccountable? I have had a particular issue given what has happened post-Carillion, and I have been trying to find out how the Pensions Regulator makes decisions, which is not at all clear. Does she agree that that needs to be brought up in this place so that there can be proper accountability?

[Laura Smith]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. From my conversation with the Minister before the debate, I am sure he will be happy to talk about that in his speech and when he meets the Pensions Regulator.

The Green Paper shows that there has been a clear decline in gilt yields over the past two decades. The public sector trade union, Unison, is of the view that most schemes that did not hedge their risk should seriously consider using that discount rate method.