Oral Answers to Questions

John Cryer Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Steve Webb]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that important issue. We are determined to drive out the bad practice whereby, as he says, people are given a bung of cash, sometimes a few weeks before Christmas, and are then given a value for their pension rights which is well below what they are actually worth to them. I met the pensions regulator and other interested groups a few weeks ago, and we are looking very hard at whether regulatory change is needed.

[John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)]

In the light of earlier questions on the Health and Safety Executive, will there be more workplace inspections next year or fewer?

[Chris Grayling]

We have made it clear that we are seeking to reduce the number of proactive workplace inspections by about a third by removing from proactive inspection low-risk premises that have no record of problems. In that way, the HSE can concentrate its resource on dealing with those employers where there is a problem and fault has been found. Indeed, we are introducing a system of fee for fault to ensure that we recover money from those employers who are breaking the rules.