Lord Hain
Main Page: Lord Hain (Labour - Life peer)
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
My Lords, I think that we are now on the homeward path. These amendments relate to public sector exit pay. A number of noble Lords have spoken on this subject. However, the amendments made in the other place that we are discussing today relate only to further regulation-making powers for Welsh Ministers in devolved areas. Specifically, the amendments enable Welsh Ministers to make regulations in respect of exit payments where they have devolved legislative competence for exit payments under the Government of Wales Act 2006. The amendments have been improved by the Welsh Assembly and I hope that noble Lords will also approve them. I beg to move.
Lord Hain (Lab)
My Lords, I welcome what the Minister has just said in respect of Wales. I point out to her that that is exactly the argument that I and my noble friend Lady Morgan put forward on the Trade Union Bill when we said that these were devolved matters covering devolved public services and that it was a breach of the devolution settlement that the Trade Union Bill transgressed that. So I am very glad that she has conceded that principle in this Bill.
Lord Mendelsohn
My Lords, the Conservative manifesto introduced this issue, saying that a Conservative Government would legislate to cap redundancy compensation for public sector workers with a particular focus on larger amounts. I will make just a few comments about something that has received some consideration but falls slightly outside that, and it would be useful if the Minister could give some indication of whether the Government were thinking in some way about how to accommodate this. It relates to the nuclear decommissioning workers who entered into an agreement with their employer. To seek to undo that agreement through legislation is slightly unjust, and this is worth looking at.
The new legislation supersedes protections under previous legislation, including the statutory protections introduced under Schedule 8 to the Energy Act 2004, which currently safeguards workers’ pensions, such as those of the Magnox workers. It has been estimated that about 1,200 Magnox workers who are decommissioning the UK’s nuclear plants will be caught out by the proposed measures in the Bill, which could see them losing thousands of pounds in retirement income. The particular reason why these cases are worthy of note is of course that people took on those jobs knowing that it would change their retirement years because they were involved in a job which had an end date which was not the same as their full working life—these were expert workers who made the decision to do it because in compensation the balance of pension payments would in some way adequately reward their commitment to that work. The impact of the Bill could also be felt by many other workers, including the entire 30,000 who are working across the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority’s estate, who will also be affected by a cap of £95,000.
As I understand from the presentation in the manifesto and at other times, the exit cap was to be seen as putting a stop to the so-called golden handshakes or fat-cat pension payouts in the public sector. But it will impact on many long-serving low-paid workers within the nuclear industry. That is why we hope that there will be some opportunity outside the Bill for the Government to look very carefully at the arrangements they have for those who do this difficult, dangerous and very important work and to give some due consideration to that, particularly because their provisions also relate to an agreement that was present in the Energy Act 2004.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
My Lords, I am grateful for the response and for the support for these amendments. Similar to the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government can now determine how they want to take forward arrangements in relation to devolved bodies and workforces. The devolved Administrations will be responsible for putting forward their own regulations and listing relevant bodies in scope. As I made clear in introducing the amendments, they will enable Welsh Ministers to make regulations in respect of exit payments where they have devolved legislative competence for exit payments under the Government of Wales Act 2006. Therefore, the situation is different from those issues, which we will no doubt come on to debate later this afternoon.
The noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, asked about the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority—a point that we have touched on before. Interestingly, as we discussed in relation to the previous amendment, the ONS is involved. It determines whether a body falls within the public sector by reference to objective criteria, based on whether the governance, funding, ownership and function of these bodies demonstrate that they are controlled by government. Organisations within the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority carry out important public work, acting as agents of and under the direction of the NDA and operating only through a licence issued by the Office for Nuclear Regulation.
The majority of funding provided to the NDA comes from the Exchequer and amounts to about £2 billion a year. Regulations, not the Bill itself, will set out who is within the scope of the cap, and I can reassure the noble Lord that the Treasury will release both the guidance and regulations in the summer in order to consult with stakeholders. We expect the regulations to come before this House later this year and to be in force from October 2016 at the earliest. NDA employees due to exit before this date will not be affected. From the point when the regulations have been made, Ministers will be able to relax the cap and may wish to consider whether exceptionally it should be relaxed for certain individuals or even organisations.
To conclude, as I said earlier, the Bill supports the UK’s position as the best place in Europe to start and grow a business. The amendments made in the other place make a series of changes to further support our aim, adding measures on apprenticeships, Sunday working, Wales, tidying up the pubs and on the Green Investment Bank, and making a number of technical changes. I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in the debates in this House and of course in the other place.
Lord Hain
I apologise to the Minister and my own Front Bench, but I cannot accept the distinction she is making between Bills here. The Minister is saying that the principle that devolved public services should be run by the Welsh Government is accepted by Her Majesty’s Government in this House in respect of this Bill but not in respect of the Trade Union Bill. That gives rise to a major question which the Welsh Government will want to revisit.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
I thank the noble Lord. My understanding is that the situation is different but we will no doubt have a debate later today—as I have already indicated. I do not think that we can spend further time in relation to this provision, which is clear cut and fully supported. I finish by thanking all those who worked tirelessly behind the scenes to facilitate the Bill’s passage through this House, including the House’s authorities, the Lord Speaker and the Bill team, who have worked so hard to get us to this place.