Oral Answers to Questions

John Bercow Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Gregg McClymont (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (Lab)]

It has been a busy few weeks in pensions world. The Minister will be aware that the Office of Fair Trading has recently announced that it is to undertake an inquiry into the private pensions market. This follows a Labour campaign for just such an inquiry. The Minister’s response to our campaign was to accuse the Labour party of scaremongering on pension charges. Now that the OFT has decided to undertake this inquiry, may I encourage the Minister to heed another Labour campaign call and lift the restrictions on NEST as soon as possible so that it can provide low-cost, high-quality pensions to everyone who wishes to save with it?

[Mr Speaker]

We look forward, I am sure, to hearing about NEST, whatever that may be.

[Steve Webb]

Thank you Mr Speaker. It will be a house- hold name soon, I hope.

We worked very closely with the OFT in the run-up to its inquiry, which will look at whether there are problems in this area. It is very welcome, and we will be working very closely with the OFT as it carries it out. As the hon. Gentleman knows, Labour introduced constraints on NEST—the National Employment Savings Trust—and we are consulting on whether to lift them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

Ministers often say that they have stopped people on Government schemes appearing in the labour market statistics as “in employment”. But recent analysis shows that of the claimed 500,000 increase in employment over the past 12 months, 214,000 people are in fact on Government schemes and mostly still claiming JSA. What is going on?

[Mr Speaker]

The question is exclusively on Easington, but the right hon. Gentleman has made his own point with delphic confidence.

[Mr Hoban]

What is happening—and it happened under the previous Government—is that these figures are drawn up in line with international rules. I agree with him that it is inappropriate, and that is why I wrote several months ago to the Office for National Statistics to ask it to change that. Only one in 20 of the additional jobs created since the general election are down to Government schemes, and the right hon. Gentleman should be commending the number of private sector jobs being created that have helped people get back into work. That is why we have record numbers of people in work.