Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Margaret Ferrier and John Lamont

Wednesday 11th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[John Lamont]

As the hon. Gentleman well knows, public sector workers are striking in Scotland because of the incompetency of the SNP Government in Edinburgh. This Government are taking action to ensure that public services are protected through anti-strike legislation, which is ensuring that people who use the NHS and other essential services are protected from those types of strike action.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)]

5. What discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on energy bill support for Scottish households.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (John Lamont)]

The Government’s energy price guarantee continues to support households across Great Britain, including in Scotland. The Chancellor’s autumn statement set out how the scheme will be adjusted by reducing typical household energy bills to an annual equivalent of around £3,000 from April 2023 until April 2024, saving an average of £500 per household.

[Margaret Ferrier]

A constituent contacted me before Christmas because she was struggling to keep up with her home energy costs. When my office contacted her provider, we found there was little support for her as a victim of Home Energy and Lifestyle Management Ltd, with the huge costs related mostly to the green deal. What discussions has the Secretary of State had with his Cabinet colleagues about tailored energy support for Scottish victims of the green deal scam?

[John Lamont]

As the hon. Lady knows, the green deal was designed to ensure that people were able to make their households more energy efficient, but we have always been clear that the repayments should not have been greater than the savings delivered. If her constituent has been mis-sold something, it is important that a complaint is made to the loan provider, and ultimately to the Financial Ombudsman Service. If that route has been pursued and the hon. Lady still needs some assistance, will she please contact me as I am happy to meet her to discuss the matter further?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Margaret Ferrier and John Lamont

Wednesday 16th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[John Lamont]

I commend my hon. Friend for raising this issue, as it is an important part of the Scottish economy. Scotland is a world leader in floating offshore wind, and it is home to both the world’s first and the world’s largest commercial floating wind projects—Hywind Scotland and Kincardine. The ScotWind leasing round, announced earlier this year, includes nearly 18 GW of potential floating wind capacity, underlining the scale of the opportunity.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)]

What discussions has the Secretary of State had with his colleagues and with his Scottish Government counterparts about the number of jobs created in Scotland through greater investment in offshore wind?

[John Lamont]

We continue to engage with our colleagues in the Scottish Government on this and a number of other policy areas, I would be happy to meet the hon. Lady to discuss further opportunities that we might be able to create in future.

Pension Schemes (Conversion of Guaranteed Minimum Pensions) Bill

Debate between Margaret Ferrier and John Lamont

2nd reading
Friday 26th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Margaret Ferrier]

The hon. Member is spot on; the change is well overdue. I will come to that, and I am sure that the Minister will answer that point too. I think the pension schemes have found some difficulties; as I say, I will come to that.

It is important to be clear that no one will have money taken away from them as a result of the Bill when pensions are equalised. If it turns out that someone is entitled to more guaranteed minimum pension than they would be entitled to if they were the opposite sex, nothing happens; that advantage is not taken away. The Bill seeks only to increase pension income for those already losing out because of their sex due to the nuances of having a guaranteed minimum pension. It is also important to be clear that this is not about giving anyone extra pension that they are not entitled to; it is simply about making sure that no one loses out on pension income as a result of their sex.

If one person has a smaller guaranteed minimum pension than another purely because the first person is male and the second female, their overall pension entitlement needs to be corrected. However, correcting people’s pensions in this way is proving a very slow process, as the hon. Member for Gedling (Tom Randall) said. The Department for Work and Pensions, working with the pensions industry, tried to cut through the complexity by offering a methodology, set out in guidance, for pension schemes to use. The methodology involved converting the guaranteed minimum pension into what I will call normal scheme benefits, using existing legislation already on the statute book.

The industry agrees that this is a sensible approach, but has pointed out that the legislation supporting the conversion process contains some uncertainties that it believes will expose it to legal risk and potential accusations of not equalising correctly. For example, the way survivor benefits are treated in the conversion legislation needs to be clarified. The industry has pointed out that legal requirements for survivor benefits when guaranteed minimum pensions are converted are not sufficiently clear. Survivor benefits are the benefits paid out to a scheme member’s widow, widower or surviving civil partner when the member passes away, and are therefore extremely important.

Equalising someone’s pension to take account of the differences that arise because they had a guaranteed minimum pension is, as I have said, very important, but schemes need clarity and legal certainty before they are able to proceed with this essential process. That is what the measures in my Bill seek to provide. Similarly, before converting guaranteed minimum pensions, pension schemes are required to get the consent of the sponsoring employer that finds the scheme. That sounds entirely reasonable, since after all the sponsoring employer has invested a lot of money in the scheme to ensure that its employees have a decent retirement income.

Unfortunately, that is not as straightforward as we might expect because the current legislation does not cover all situations, such as where the original sponsoring employer is no longer in business. As a result of this lack of clarity in the legislation, some pension schemes have held off equalising for these effects of guaranteed minimum pensions. This Bill will help with that by rectifying those uncertainties and clarifying the legislation that schemes will use if they follow the methodology set out in the Department for Work and Pensions guidance.

I should make it clear to the House at this point that the Bill does not impose any new costs or requirements on occupational pension schemes or their sponsoring employers. Affected occupational schemes have known that they need to equalise pensions for the effect of guaranteed minimum pension for many years and should have been planning accordingly. The Bill will simply help pension schemes to do exactly what they need to do to stop people losing out.

I have engaged with representatives from the pensions industry, who welcome the provisions. The industry has long lobbied for the clarifications in this Bill to be made. I should hope that all here recognise the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) sitting opposite me today; I am delighted to say that the Government have decided to support my Bill. It is good to be working with the Government to make things easier for pension schemes.

[John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on bringing forward this Bill. She is speaking extremely well on a very technical area of pensions law. On the devolution point, she will know that Stormont has agreed to deal with the same issue, which is devolved to Stormont, through this Bill. Does she agree that that is a good example of where this Parliament and the devolved Parliaments can work together to achieve a desired positive outcome?

[Margaret Ferrier]

I thank the hon. Member; I am not sure I agree wholeheartedly with all his intervention, but the Bill extends to England, Wales and Scotland, and Northern Ireland, as he mentioned, has asked to be covered by it as well. This particular Bill extends to the whole UK and I am happy that it includes Scotland as well, unlike the Bill of the right hon. Member for North Somerset, which only covers England. As I said, it is good to be working with the Government to make things easier for pension schemes in fulfilling their obligations to their members and to ensure that benefits are paid correctly to members of occupational pension schemes.

I will not take up a lot of time, because the hon. Member for Meriden (Saqib Bhatti) is looking to give his Bill a Second Reading as well. But before I finish, there are quite a number of people on the DWP team who I would like to thank as they have helped me considerably: Narinder Clarke, Anna Smith-Spark, Gareth Thomas, Katy Marcus, Maria Burgess and David Brown. Of course I also thank my parliamentary assistant Kim Glendenning, who has helped me considerably in pulling all this together, the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association and the Minister.