Public Service Pensions Bill

John Bercow Excerpts

Monday 22nd April 2013 Commons Chamber

Consideration of Lords amendments

[Mr Speaker]

I must draw the House’s attention to the fact that financial privilege is involved in Lords amendments 18, 19, 22, 28, 29, 37 to 39, 45, 78, 79, 82, 114, 117, 119 and 127. If the House agrees to the amendments, I will cause an appropriate entry to be made in the Journal.

Schedule 1

Persons in public service: definitions

[The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Sajid Javid)]

I beg to move, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 78.

[Mr Speaker]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Lords amendment 79, and Government motion to disagree.

[Sajid Javid]

We return today to the Public Service Pensions Bill, which will put public service pensions on a fair and sustainable footing for generations to come. There was broad support from all parts of the House for this measure, and I am grateful to all those who have voiced an interest in the Bill for their co-operative approach. I would also like to draw the attention of the House to the progress the Bill has made in the other place.

First, when the Bill left this House, the Opposition were concerned about the wide scope of powers to make retrospective changes and to amend primary legislation. The Government understand that concern. Pensions are an important part of scheme members’ future income in retirement. We therefore tabled amendments in the other place to give members or their representatives a complete veto over any significant adverse retrospective change to their pensions and to restrict the powers to amend primary legislation. Furthermore, any Treasury orders for negative revaluation of scheme benefits will now need to be made by the affirmative Commons procedure.

Secondly, the Opposition sought further assurances on the governance elements of the legislation, particularly a requirement in the Bill for employee representatives on scheme boards. Again, I am pleased to report that the Government tabled amendments in the other place to require an equal balance of member and employer representatives, along with an explicit requirement for national scheme advisory boards.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is talking about some welcome changes that the Government have made, but there is another party to this contract on pensions. The taxpayer will foot the bill for the unfunded part of the obligations of public sector pensions. Will he assure me—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Will the hon. Gentleman resume his seat? I do not blame him, in the first instance, because the trouble, the mischief, was started, however inadvertently, by the Minister, who is looking at me with an innocent expression belied by the reality of what he was saying in the debate. This is not a generalised debate; these are narrowly defined matters, and we are considering the relevant amendment, to which, to put it kindly, the hon. Gentleman’s remarks were not altogether adjacent.

[Sajid Javid]

With your guidance, Mr Speaker, which I always take very seriously, I will move directly to Lords amendments 78 and 79.

The Lords amendments would give the civil servants in the MOD fire and police services a normal pension age of 60 in the new schemes. The Government do not believe that this is the correct way forward.