Relationship Support

Steve Webb Excerpts

Wednesday 25th March 2015 Written Statements

[The Minister for Pensions (Steve Webb)]

We will be extending seven contracts with organisations delivering relationship support provision and related services. These services include preventive support for couples during key transition points in their relationships; targeted support for parents with complex needs; work to promote healthy relationships and encourage the take-up of support services; help for couples experiencing difficulties; training for health visitors to recognise and respond to the signs of relationship distress; training for relationship support specialists; and policy development work.

In addition, we will be launching a pilot to test the inclusion of relationship education in perinatal classes in eight areas of the country. The objectives of this pilot are to test the effectiveness of this approach in:

preparing couples for the impact having a baby will have on their relationship;

normalising the fact that relationship changes in this period are common; and

providing strategies on how to manage any differences/conflict.

These contracts will be worth just over £7.2 million with further funding earmarked to help local authorities develop strategies to help improve the quality of family relationships. This will bring total funding for 2015-16 to just under £8 million.

In addition, we will also be offering a six month extension to all of the 16 Help and Support for Separated Families Innovation Fund projects, which focus on helping parents going through separation to resolve conflict and work together in the interests of their children. The extending projects will share in a total of £2.5 million which will enable further work with families and the opportunity to gather more data to evaluate the success of these projects.

[HCWS474]

Amendment of the Law

Steve Webb Excerpts

Monday 23rd March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

When the Chancellor spoke in the 2014 Budget he said that people would be given “advice”, which was then watered down to “guidance”. Now, with two weeks to go, we know that nobody has received this guidance, yet people will be making irreversible decisions about their retirement income.

This Budget has been more of the same from the same old Tories: more overspends, delays and missed targets on social security; and more big promises for savers and pensioners that are not backed up with the support and the protections we need to make these reforms work.

[The Minister for Pensions (Steve Webb)]

The hon. Lady is concerned, as we are, to make sure that consumers get good value. She has proposed a cap on charges for these new pension products. Presumably, she thinks the cap should come in straight away. What should it be?

[Rachel Reeves]

We have said that there should be a cap on fees and charges—not just for the annuities products, but for the new drawdown products. We think it should be at the same level as the Government have set out, but then reduced over time. In that way, we will ensure that savers get value for money. Unless we do that, more people will be ripped off. Unfortunately, despite all the Government’s rhetoric, they have not taken action to protect people’s retirement incomes.

What we have heard from the Secretary of State today is the same complacency and self-congratulation. Yes, of course we welcome any fall in unemployment, but it was this Government who allowed unemployment to soar to record levels in the first place, peaking three years ago in February 2012 at 1.7 million. Under this Government, the number of long-term unemployed, abandoned to a life on the dole, has risen by 49%. That is why Labour will have a compulsory jobs guarantee.

AEA Technology Pension Scheme

Steve Webb Excerpts

Wednesday 18th March 2015 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Pensions (Steve Webb)]

I congratulate my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown), on securing this important debate. As he knows, I have taken an interest in the issue, and I met his constituent Dr Nicholson with him in 2013. I have also had a number of meetings with hon. Members and scheme members.

It is important to say, for what it is worth, that I hugely sympathise with anybody who built up pension rights, was expecting a certain pension and then did not get it. Nothing I say subsequently about the Government’s position takes away from the fact that we are dealing with a very unsatisfactory situation that all of us would want to avoid.

Let me go through the points my hon. Friend raised and respond to them as best as I can. The first is the issue of what the legislation meant when it said that the value of accruals in the new scheme had to be “no less favourable”. The scheme people came out of was essentially a civil service-type scheme. That meant the new scheme had to enable people to go on building up benefits that were no less favourable; it did not mean that what was then a private company had its pension deficit, for example, underwritten by the taxpayer indefinitely—it could not have meant that.

Let us suppose that the trustees of a hypothetical privatised new scheme invested recklessly and generated a huge deficit, resulting in insolvency. Would the taxpayer be responsible for the trustees’ actions? Similarly, if investment returns went badly for that private company or other private companies, would the taxpayer be indefinitely on the hook for any deficit? Clearly, that is not what the law meant, and it is not our understanding of what it meant; indeed, the more one thinks about it, the more one sees that it could not have been what the law meant. The law was quite clear that people transferring across had to build up benefits on the same—no less favourable—basis as under the scheme they had left. That was the scheme that was set up, which complied with the legislation.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I understand, and I agree with my right hon. Friend’s point. My point was that, at the time of transfer, the scheme was in surplus. Subsequently, the actuarial valuation proved that insufficient money had been transferred from the mother scheme to the daughter scheme. If insufficient money was transferred, the new scheme was never going to perform to the level the pensioners expected.

[Steve Webb]

Let me address that point. The first thing to say is that the trustees of the scheme the money went into agreed the transfer values. They could have said, “You’re not putting in enough money to reflect the benefits we are going to have to pay out,” but they signed off the transfer values at the time.

The notion of a surplus is strange, because this is an unfunded pension scheme until the point of transfer. It is just a liability on the Government’s books for decades to come. A flow of contributions has come in, and those are given a notional investment return in the Government books. The concept of a surplus is not what this means in plain language; it is not like the Government were sitting on a pot of money that they hid. Government accounting for public service unfunded pension schemes is very different from that for funded pension schemes, where a surplus has a real meaning. It sounds as though what we are talking about means something when it does not. This is about the way the Government accounts for public service unfunded schemes; it is not that money was held back.

A valuation was done on quite a prudent basis. If the money transferred across had been invested in quite a low-risk way, it would, at the point of transfer—that is the crucial point—have been enough to pay the liabilities that were transferred across. However, the world changed subsequently for this scheme and every other scheme: people started living longer, investment returns over time started falling and, as my hon. Friend said, accounting practices changed. All sorts of things changed, which meant that all sorts of private sector company pension schemes began to face bigger deficits. The AEA Technology pension scheme was not different or unique in that respect. The trustees accepted the transfer value, which was fair for the liabilities that were transferred across, even on a quite prudent basis.

[Alok Sharma]

Will the Minister give way?

[Steve Webb]

I wonder if I may make more progress, to be fair to my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds, as I want to respond on a few points.

The money went across; the firm was then private. Clearly, the business went on trading for 15 years or so. An issue arises about whether it was a prosperous, expanding firm where something funny went on, or on the brink of insolvency. I want to clarify what went on; my hon. Friend referred to it in part. In November 2011, the company issued a trading statement saying its financial position was deteriorating, and it was discussing the situation with its banks. In April 2012, AEA Technology’s latest forecast indicated that the company would be insolvent on a cash-flow basis by June 2012.

It can be simultaneously true that a company is recruiting more people and that it has terrible cash-flow problems. If the point is reached where it cannot meet its liabilities, it becomes insolvent. To give a sense of scale, the deficit in the pension fund as of 2011, on a standard basis, was £315 million, and the company could not afford to pay £6 million towards it. That is how bad things had got. So on the notion that somehow that £315 million deficit, which was £450 million on a buy-out basis, was going to be cleared, that was not going to happen.

Pre-pack administration is controversial and difficult and happens only when the options are insolvency with jobs lost and the pension fund going to the PPF, or insolvency with jobs saved and the pension fund going to the PPF. That was the choice. In fact, because of the pre-pack, hundreds of jobs were saved. To make a comparison with a straight insolvency, I am advised that the scheme would have got about £1 million with a routine insolvency, but the pre-pack enabled it to get between £6 million and £8 million.

My hon. Friend is quite right: frankly, when a scheme is £300 million in deficit that will not make any difference, because it is going to end up in the PPF anyway, so the benefit is to the PPF and not the members. However, the Government do not encourage struggling firms to shovel their pension fund deficits off to the PPF and carry on trading. It is allowed only where insolvency is inevitable. Our judgment was that that was the state of the company at the time, and the goal was to save some jobs, because the scheme was going to end up in the PPF anyway.

My hon. Friend asked about PPF benefits, and he is right: it is a compensation scheme. It is not a pension scheme that replaces and mirrors the benefits that were to be provided in the scheme. The reason for that is that the money for the PPF comes from other pension schemes, so any improvement in the benefits under the PPF is a bigger levy on employers who run other pension schemes. We should bear in mind that it did not exist much more than a decade ago. When it was set up, it was decided that it would offer broad compensation—100% above pension age, and 90% below, and indexation post-1997. That is the statutory requirement; schemes must index post-1997, and not pre-1997, and that is why the PPF does so.

My hon. Friend asked whether, because the firm was privatised, it should be made a special case. Of course I sympathise, but on the other hand vast numbers of workers now work for private companies that were previously nationalised. If AEA Technology were to be declared a special case, the pension funds of all the people who used to work for BT or British Airways and all the privatised companies would have to have special arrangements, too, with huge cost implications.

The question about the advice note given at the time is important. I have read the GAD note, and its introduction says, at 1.1.3:

“The note is not intended to suggest that any one course of action is better than any other. This would depend on individual circumstances, and if you are unsure of the most suitable course of action you should seek Independent Financial Advice which would take into account your particular circumstances.”

That was the point of the note. People could leave the money where it was, transfer it across to the AEA scheme or take a personal pension transfer. The note was explicit from the start that it was not designed to lead people down a particular route. In a sense, from the Government’s point of view it did not matter. The Government were going to transfer across the cash value of the rights built up, so they did not care whether people transferred across. There would have been no reason for GAD to write a note designed to lead people to a particular outcome. It would cost the Government the same either way.

[Sir Alan Haselhurst (Saffron Walden) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend understand that the frustration of the pensioners and those of us trying to represent them is compounded by the fact that there seem to be different players in the game, including another Department? We are grateful to him for responding to the debate, but perhaps he could nudge the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to reply to questions I tabled to try to get further answers for my constituents.

[Steve Webb]

I am very happy to ask colleagues at the Department to respond to my right hon. Friend’s questions. Obviously, as he said, the issue of PPF is a DWP responsibility, but insolvency policy—pre-packs and so on—is a BIS responsibility, and of course he should get prompt responses to his questions. If my hon. Friend the Member for Reading West still wants to intervene I am happy to give way.

[Alok Sharma]

I wanted to make the point that people affected by the scheme will be listening to the debate, and the bottom line for them is that what the Minister is saying—perhaps he will correct me if I am wrong—is that no compensation or redress will be forthcoming from the Government.

[Steve Webb]

Clearly, the Government have set up the Pension Protection Fund. As I have said, more than about 10 years ago, people in the situation we are talking about might have received a tiny fraction of the pension they had been going to get. In the present case, the base calculation for those over scheme pension age is 100%. I take the point about indexation, but it is 100%. It is 90% for those under scheme pension age. That is obviously still a significant part of their pension rights. Clearly, the reduction in indexation is important. I would not play that down.

The other thing to mention—my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds did not refer to it—is that at the moment scheme benefits are capped. There is implicitly a salary cap—a cap on the amount of money that someone can get through the scheme. We legislated during this Parliament, with the support of my right hon. and hon. Friends, for that cap to be raised for long-serving employees. One reason I was keen to do that is if a relatively large pension through the PPF is capped, it may not be because the person in question was a ridiculously high earner; it could simply be because of very long service with that employer. I believe that that is so for many of my hon. Friend’s constituents.

I felt it was unjust that the cap applied quite as brutally as it does in those cases, so we are now working on the secondary legislation necessary to get the cap lifted. It will rise by 3% per year for each year above 20 years of service, so long-serving employees will get a higher cap. We are working on the measure, and if we can get it done this year, we will. I suspect that realistically we are probably looking at this time next year. However, I do not have a pot of money to offer beyond that. Clearly, the PPF is there for all employees of private sector companies.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that announcement, which I think affected scheme members will warmly welcome. I mentioned one other matter: being contracted out from the state pension scheme. Given what has happened to the poor people involved, is there any change that can be made, so that they could be considered contracted into the state pension scheme, and therefore receive additional state pension?

[Steve Webb]

The challenge is that the flip side of being contracted out is that both the employee and the employer paid a reduced rate of national insurance, so lower state benefits accrue, and the scheme essentially replaces part of the state benefit, up to a certain amount, often called a guaranteed minimum pension. The employee benefits from low contributions and has part of the state pension replaced by the scheme pension. I hesitate to say this definitively, but the vast majority of scheme members will certainly get at least the guaranteed minimum pension, I would expect, through the equivalent—through the PPF, now. I cannot swear that that will be true in every case. It will be very difficult to unwind all of that and to go back and say, “We offset your reduced NI, so we work out how much you and the employer saved by reduced NI; we take account of that and give you a bigger state pension and we net off the saving.” That would be a very complex calculation. I think there are occasions when this sort of thing gets unwound, but they are exceptional, and I would not want to raise my hon. Friend’s hopes.

I want to reiterate my sympathy. I believe that the Government transferred a fair amount of money across at the time and fulfilled their legal obligations to provide matching—at least as favourable—benefits. Obviously, we all regret where things ended up. I do not believe that the company was pressured into pre-pack administration. I believe that at the time that was done to save jobs, which it did. I am pleased that PPF exists to provide at least a safety net, and I hope that my hon. Friends will welcome the fact that we have done what we could to improve it during this Parliament. That will benefit a significant number of people who worked for AEA Technology and unfortunately will not get the full pension that they expected.

Pension Regulations

Steve Webb Excerpts

Monday 9th March 2015 Written Statements

[The Minister for Pensions (Steve Webb)]

The Government intend to lay before Parliament the following amendment packages to private pensions regulations to ensure that the Budget flexibilities operate as intended:

The Occupational and Personal Pension Schemes (Disclosure of Information) (Amendment) Regulations 2015.

The Occupational and Personal Pension Schemes (Transfer Values) (Amendment and Revocation) Regulations 2015.

The Occupational Pension Schemes (Consequential and Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2015.

A further set of private pensions regulations are subject to the laying of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Regulated Activities) (Amendment) (No.2) Order 2015

We intend to lay these regulations, as below, in due course once the above Order is laid:

The Pensions Schemes Act (Transitional Provisions and Appropriate Independent Advice) Regulations 2015

I am grateful to all those who have worked and engaged with us so positively in order to deliver these changes within a challenging timetable.

These regulations will confirm the Government’s commitment to providing individuals aged 55 and over with the freedom to access their pension savings whenever they like and to choose what to do with them.

The regulations will be published at: http://www.legislation. gov.uk once they have been laid.

[HCWS358]

Oral Answers to Questions

Steve Webb Excerpts

Monday 9th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Richard Harrington (Watford) (Con)]

5. What progress has been made on reform of the Child Support Agency.

[The Minister for Pensions (Steve Webb)]

I am pleased to tell my hon. Friend that the 2012 child maintenance scheme is now open to all applicants and is delivering a more efficient statutory service, including the option of direct payments, for those who cannot make a family-based arrangement. From January 2015, closure of existing CSA cases began.

[Richard Harrington]

I thank the Minister and want to ask him a further question. For most MPs starting in 2010, this issue provided a lot of constituency casework for us, and the agency in question was often felt not to be fit for purpose, despite the good intentions in setting it up. What progress have the Government made in dealing with the fraud and error that has been so well publicised as existing in the system?

[Steve Webb]

We recognise that further incremental reform would not deal with the long and deep-seated problems with the Child Support Agency. That is why we are closing all the cases on the existing system and moving towards a much more streamlined system. To provide one example of the improvements, we now get data direct from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs rather than having to wait for non-resident parents to provide payslips, so we have prompt and accurate information to avoid arrears building up.

[Sir Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

May I thank my right hon. Friend and the Government for the substantial reforms that they have made to the Child Support Agency, whose service as it was a few years ago is unrecognisable to us now?

[Steve Webb]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for what he has said. We want to encourage people to sort things out for themselves whenever that is possible, but when they do use the new system, we offer a much better service than we did. For example, we now have what is known in the jargon as a web-based portal. People can log on and see how their accounts stand, and the system is so good that some have likened it to online banking.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

6. What assessment he has made of the potential effect on people subject to the under-occupancy penalty of a reduction in funding for discretionary housing payments in 2015-16.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

T6. Will the Minister tell the House how the outlook for women and their pensions has improved since 2010?

[The Minister for Pensions (Steve Webb)]

I am very happy to brief my hon. Friend. Tackling the poorer pension outcomes for women has been a long-term priority for him and for me. Our reformed state pension will come in during 2016 and will deliver a fairer pension for women. Millions of women have been automatically enrolled and so will have a pension of their own, on top of a decent state pension—the difference, dare I say it, that a Liberal Democrat Pensions Minister makes.

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

Responding on the issue of youth unemployment, the Minister for Employment painted a rosy picture, but she needs to take additional action in rural areas, especially those such as mine, where youth unemployment continues to rise month on month and the whole economy is based on agriculture and tourism. What additional support does she think she can genuinely give to areas such as mine?

Littlewoods and Telegraph Pension Funds

Steve Webb Excerpts

Thursday 5th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Pensions (Steve Webb)]

I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Nadine Dorries) on securing this debate. I will focus my remarks on the Littlewoods and Telegraph pension funds and the matters that fall within my responsibility. I hope that I can respond helpfully to her concerns.

The security of pension scheme members’ pensions is always a matter of concern to me and to the House, and rightly so. It might help to clarify one or two points about the regulatory regime and the protection afforded to members, because it differs according to the type of scheme, and the risk of a shortfall differs according to the type of scheme. Within Littlewoods and Telegraph there are different sorts of pension schemes, some of which are at risk of shortfall and some of which are not. It might help if I put that on the record at the outset.

[Nadine Dorries]

May I clarify one point? Although the title of the debate is Littlewoods and Telegraph pension schemes, I deliberately did not speak about the Telegraph pension scheme because it came to my attention today that it is in the process of changing, for whatever reason, its fund managers, so I felt that it was inappropriate to comment on it.

[Steve Webb]

For the record, the Telegraph pension plan is what is called a defined contribution pension scheme, and it is therefore not capable of having a shortfall and there are no pension promises attached to the plan. There used to be a Telegraph executive pension scheme, which is now closed. I believe it transferred into the Telegraph pension plan, so my understanding is that none of the members of those schemes is at risk of shortfall, regardless of the position of the sponsoring employer.

The hon. Lady raised the Littlewoods and Shop Direct schemes. Both of those are salary-related schemes. The Shop Direct scheme, which is separate from the Littlewoods one, covers around 400 staff. I understand that it is closed to new members and for contributions by existing members. Under the regulatory regime, schemes are valued, their assets and liabilities are measured, and if there is a shortfall, plans are put in place to deal with it. I understand that the assets of the Shop Direct scheme at the last valuation were £120 million, with liabilities of £100 million. So the Shop Direct scheme is currently in surplus, which is relatively unusual for a scheme of this sort.

Let me say a little about how the Littlewoods pension scheme operates. The way in which such pension schemes operate is that there is a triennial valuation. The assets and liabilities are valued and the last triennial valuation of the Littlewoods scheme was in December 2012. Obviously, things have moved on since then and the figures arguably are different now. The last triennial valuation gave assets of £1 billion and a deficit—in excess, therefore, of the assets—of around £176 million. The way the regulatory regime works means that that amount does not have to be found overnight—obviously, the liabilities might run on for decades—so something called a recovery plan has to be put in place, and it has to be agreed by the trustees and the sponsoring employer and signed off by the Pensions Regulator. The company is currently five years into a recovery plan that will run until December 2021, and the fact that it was signed off in 2012 means that the regulator was content that it was appropriate to respond to the deficit and the scheme as it then stood. The Littlewoods pension trust has since been paying around £12 million a year into the scheme, in line with the plan, and I understand that from July 2016 that amount will increase to £15 million.

Obviously I cannot comment on the hon. Lady’s wider remarks on corporate structures and various other matters, but I can say that, as far as we are aware, the recovery plan has been adhered to, it was agreed and signed off by the regulator, and the payments in line with the plan have been made.

[Nadine Dorries]

The Minister has rightly detailed the assets, but can he clarify who would have first call on those assets if there was a shortfall in the scheme, if the company was in dire financial straits and if it had £2 billion of debts: the pension scheme or the banks?

[Steve Webb]

As the hon. Lady says, the pension scheme is underwritten by the Pension Protection Fund. There is a regulatory regime to ensure that companies do not hide money, for example. I will say a little more about that, because she raised the issue of money going offshore. Essentially, the regulator has powers to ensure that, when there is an insolvency event and a shortfall in the pension fund, companies cannot simply walk away with money that has been squirreled away elsewhere. The regulator has powers to ensure that money that should be accessible in the event of insolvency is accessible. If there is still a shortfall, the Pension Protection Fund comes into play. I will respond in a moment to her comment that the Pension Protection Fund is essentially a hit on the taxpayer, because the situation is slightly more complicated than that.

Let me return to a point the hon. Lady made about the governance of the schemes. The members’ interests in any pension scheme of that sort are meant to be protected by trustees. I agree that it is important that the trustees are properly appointed and that they do their job in line with the law. With regard to the Littlewoods scheme, by law there have to be member-nominated trustees. My understanding is that there are four such trustees on the Littlewoods scheme and two on the smaller Shop Direct scheme. As far as we can see, the membership of the trustee board is in line with statutory requirements.

All trustees, whether appointed by the company or nominated by members, have the same fiduciary duty to scheme members: however they got on board, they all have the same duty. If the hon. Lady has any reason to think that any member of the trustee board is not fulfilling their fiduciary duty to scheme members, I encourage her to give the names directly to the Pensions Regulator and provide it with evidence for that assertion. Those founded allegations would then be investigated. We certainly believe that trustees have an important job to do. If there are any concerns that they are not doing that job, she should certainly raise them directly with the Pensions Regulator, with names and evidence. The fact that someone has been a trustee for a long time does not in and of itself make them biased or unfit to be a trustee, but clearly the rules require at least a third of the board to be nominated by scheme members. They are not representatives of the members as such, but they all have a legal duty to all the members.

Let me move on to the regulatory regime that is meant to protect members. The key point is that every three years the scheme has to be valued: we measure the assets and the liability. If there is a shortfall, a plan has to be put in place, as it has been for the Littlewoods scheme. Three years later, a fresh action is taken, with assets and liabilities measured. If there is still a shortfall, a revised recovery plan is brought in. The idea is to strike a balance, ensuring that the scheme is properly funded and that, if there is an insolvency event, members are protected and the Pension Protection Fund is protected, but without killing the goose that lays the golden egg.

We do not insist on an excessively rapid filling in of pension scheme deficits, because it might undermine the solvency of the sponsoring employer, which is the best guarantee of getting the pensions paid. We try to strike a balance. A recovery plan is an agreement between the trustees and the sponsoring employer and it is signed off by the Pensions Regulator. As I have said, the last recovery plan is being stuck to so far, so whatever else might be happening in the corporate group or to the funds of the company, the obligations to the pension scheme, in line with the recovery plan, are being met.

The hon. Lady asked, quite properly, what happens if money goes offshore. I assure her that the Pensions Regulator has powers to act if it believes that money that should properly be available to the employer and then to the pension fund is somehow being concealed and removed from the country. The regulator can issue a financial support direction, which requires the employer or a connected or associated person to put in place financial support for the pension scheme. The regulator has demonstrated that it can take effective action against employers, even when an employer is based overseas.

To give an example from January and the Carrington Wire pension scheme, the regulator issued warning notices to two companies based in Russia and subsequently reached an £8.5 million settlement with them. In addition, the regulator has in the past also taken action against companies based in America, Canada and the Bahamas. Although I absolutely understand the concerns that money going offshore inevitably makes things more complicated—I accept that—the regulator’s powers and ability to act are not restricted to the UK. The regulator can take action in other courts and has successfully recovered money when that has proved necessary.

On the case under discussion, I stress that, as far as we can see, there is a recovery plan and the payments are being met. If the regulator had concerns that payments were not being met, it could take action, but as long as the triennial valuations are happening, the scheme is being properly governed and the payments are being made, that is what is required of the sponsoring employer.

The hon. Lady referred to the Pension Protection Fund as a risk to the taxpayer. To be clear, the revenue of the PPF comes from the assets of pension schemes where there has been an insolvency event. The assets go into the PPF, so there is then an investment return on them. The PPF also raises a levy, which is not taxpayer-funded; the levy is on sponsoring employers of remaining salary-related pension schemes. Obviously, the Pensions Regulator is trying to protect the PPF—we do not want any claims, if possible, on the PPF—but in the event of an insolvency the PPF pays members’ pensions with, roughly speaking, 100% for those who have reached scheme pension age and 90% for those who have not, with some limitations on indexation and some caps. Any shortfall between PPF-level benefits and the amount of money that goes in from an insolvent employer and their scheme is made up from the PPF. That money comes from the levy payers, who are sponsoring employers, and not from the taxpayer.

The only indirect impact on the taxpayer, I suppose, could be if someone’s pension is substantially reduced and they are so poor in retirement that they claim means-tested benefits. There could be a marginal impact on the taxpayer, but the way PPF works means that, if schemes end up in it, the cost—for example, through increased levies—is borne by other sponsoring employers. Of course, we care about that. We do not want other sponsoring employers—“good” and solvent employers responsible for final salary pension schemes—to face any bill in excess of that which they need to face. Of course, it matters to us that people meet their liabilities and recovery plans, but that is not something that will have a direct impact on the taxpayer.

It is entirely proper to seek assurances that we are on our guard and protecting the interests of scheme members. The people in place to protect the interests of scheme members are the trustees. We have looked at the composition of the trustees of these pension schemes and, on the face of it, there is nothing irregular or out of line with what they are legally required to do. However, if the hon. Lady has evidence to the contrary, I encourage her to share it with the regulator.

The funding position of many schemes is in deficit, and some have bigger deficits than in the Littlewoods case. As I have said, one scheme is actually in surplus, which is quite unusual. For a scheme in deficit, there is a process of recovery plans that must be adhered to. We take that very seriously, and we would not accept a sponsoring employer saying that it cannot afford to meet the recovery plan if it turns out that it has money stashed somewhere else.

We have powers to intervene in corporate restructurings. If the Pensions Regulator believes that a sponsoring employer is somehow artificially contriving the structure of its business to shield assets and generate insolvency, meaning that there is suddenly no money to be found, the regulator can take pre-emptive action by refusing to clear various forms of corporate restructuring or, more normally, by placing conditions on corporate restructurings, and that sometimes results in a corporate restructuring not happening.

I reassure the hon. Lady that we are not entirely passive in all of this: we do not sit and wait for things to go wrong. There is a systematic three-year valuation process, and there is a process for agreeing credible recovery plans. We do not let such plans run on into the middle distance in the vague hope that in 20 years’ time somebody will have some cash; we make them realistic so that the deficit is recovered in a reasonable period. We try to make sure that schemes are well governed. The regulator has a trustee toolkit to equip trustees and enable them to do their job properly, and it would act on any concerns about trustees not doing their job properly.

I hope that I have been able to respond to the hon. Lady’s concerns. As we have established, the Telegraph scheme is not of the kind that can generate a shortfall, so that issue does not arise. The Littlewoods scheme does have a deficit, but a recovery plan is in place, and as far as we can see it is being adhered to. If it was not adhered to, we would be in a position to take action, and we would do so. I hope that is helpful to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Pension Schemes Bill

Steve Webb Excerpts

Tuesday 24th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Pensions (Steve Webb)]

I beg to move, That this House agrees with Lords amendment 1.

[Mr Speaker]

With this is will be convenient to take Lords amendments 2 to 9, 44, 49, 56 to 65, and 117.

[Steve Webb]

I believe that the Bill is in a better state as a result of the two groups of Lords amendments that we shall discuss today. Many of them are Government amendments, designed to tidy things up or deal with errors, and some reflect their lordships’ desire for the affirmative procedure to be used in the case of certain statutory instruments. The amendments are largely technical, but I shall of course be happy to deal with them in more detail if the House wishes me to do so.

Lords amendments 1 to 9, 49, and 59 to 65 deal with defined ambition and collectives. The Bill contains key reforms to private pensions; encouraging and enabling “defined ambition” or “shared risk” pension schemes and “collective benefits”. In the following amendments, their lordships sought to refine or build on the legislation since it had left the Commons.

Lords amendments 1, 2, 3 and 6 introduce minor changes to ensure drafting consistency. Clause 27 provides for regulations to require a scheme providing collective benefits to wind up the whole or part of the scheme, while clause 37 provides for regulations to impose a duty on managers of non-trust-based schemes to act in the best interests of the members when making certain decisions. Both clauses refer to different types of obligation that may apply in relation to the scheme, including those that are part of the scheme—that is, provisions of the scheme—and those contained in legislation that applies to the scheme. The amendments provide for descriptive consistency in the clauses in relation to those different types of obligation.

Lords amendments 4 and 5 clarify “publication of documents” provisions. Powers in part 2 of the Bill may require trustees or managers of schemes providing collective benefits to have policies in relation to a number of matters, including the factors used to calculate member benefits, the calculation of transfer values, and steps to deal with a deficit or surplus in relation to the target. Clause 32 allows regulations made under part 2, which require trustees or managers to prepare or obtain any document, to include requirements relating to the publication of those documents and the sending of copies to a specified person. Specified persons could include members and regulators.

The publication of various policies is a key feature of the regime that we are seeking to introduce in order to ensure that it is clear how members’ assets and benefits will be managed or calculated by the scheme. It ensures that there will be transparency in regard to the way in which collective benefit assets are treated in certain circumstances, because there is a less direct relationship than there is in a money purchase benefit when it comes to a member’s entitlement in relation to contributions. We also have regulation-making powers to make certain requirements in relation to the policy. An amendment was required to put it beyond doubt that the provisions of clause 32 also apply to the policies specifically. The amendment ensures there is no possibility of a scheme’s “having” a policy that we cannot require to be published or sent to a specified person.

Lords amendment 7 puts the meaning of the amendment made by clause 45 beyond doubt. The change to section 67A of the Pensions Act in the clause makes any modification to an occupational pension scheme that would replace a member’s accrued rights with a right to a collective benefit a “protected modification”. Protected modifications can be made only if the member consents. Lords amendment 7 makes it clear that the provision applies only when the existing accrued right is not a right to a collective benefit.

Lords amendments 8, 9, 59 and 60 address an omission in the current legislation. While the changes made by the Bill were being checked, omissions in the Pensions Act 2014 came to light. The amendments that were needed all relate to overriding legislation. When legislation overrides conflicting provision in the scheme rules, there are circumstances in which that legislation needs to be treated as if it were part of the scheme rules. The amendments ensure that overriding requirements made under regulations provided for by schedules 17 and 18 to the Pensions Act will be treated as part of the scheme rules for the purposes of the Pensions Act 2004, in the case of Lords amendments 64 and 65, and subsisting rights provisions in the 1995 Act, in the case of Lords amendments 8 and 9. The amendments provide for consistency and clarity in the way in which the overriding provisions are dealt with.

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

I thank the Minister for his explanation of amendment 1 and those with which it is grouped. Let me make a number of points. There are two parts of this Bill, and we will come to the second part regarding the way it interacts with the pension budget flexibilities announced in last year’s Budget in a moment. I would like to put on record my thanks to the other place and particularly those on the Opposition Front Bench who have done such a sterling job on what is often a rather technical Bill. I also want to put on record my appreciation for the work done by Baronesses Drake and Hollis who have done so much to make this a better piece of legislation.

Let me pick the Minister up on a couple of things, particularly around clause 8. He referred in his explanation to clause 8 and the delegated powers contained therein. He will be aware that the debates in the other place focused for some time on the implications of clause 8 because, of course, it is a key and critical provision setting the definition of what are collective benefits, on which the rest of the clauses in part 2, and many of the associated delegated powers, depend. That is why it is so critical in its construct and its definition of the delegated powers associated with it.

In the other place, Baroness Drake made it clear that in her view the power to set regulations under clause 8(3)(b) should be subject to the affirmative procedure because a definition of what is or is not a collective benefit is critical to the whole scope of part 2, which deals with collective benefits. Clause 8(3)(b) would allow the Government to use regulations to avoid schemes being subject to the expense of meeting the detailed requirements set out in clauses 9 to 35 if they are deemed not to be proper collective benefits, but the clause, in granting the Government power to significantly alter by regulation the constituent benefits that are not included in the definition of collective benefits, has the ability potentially to remove members of schemes from the protection of the requirements in the other clauses in part 2.

The Minister will know that this could have considerable implications for members and the scope of the whole of part 2. The potential of this regulation to remove members from the protections they may already have by being in a designated collective benefit scheme which subsequently a change of regulation deems they are no longer in makes it in our view compelling that this should remain a power that is subject to the affirmative procedure. The Government’s reply to the scrutiny from the Opposition in the other place was to say, “Well, the affirmative procedure will be used in first use, but subsequently not,” but surely this is worth considering. I will be interested to hear the Minister’s response.

In the other place, the Government gave a detailed response to this critique. As anyone who reads the debates will see, it revolved around the fact that the first use will be by affirmative procedure, but the affirmative procedure might be used in the first instance on something quite straightforward, such as that an obvious with-profits policy arrangement is not to be included in collective benefits, but the subsequent use of the regulation under the negative procedure might go-to the heart, to something much more fundamental such as an existing collective benefit scheme. We must be aware of the possibility that regulations could be used to weaken the protections scheme members have.

In response to this specific point, Lord Bourne said in the other place that the negative procedure will still provide a measure of protection, but we know that is not the level of protection that would be provided by the affirmative procedure. This is rather technical, but it does bear upon a very important aspect, which is that moving towards a negative position rather than a positive position through an affirmative vote could be a way in which the protections are weakened—I am sure against the Minister’s inclinations and desires. I would appreciate hearing his observations on that part of the debate in the other place.

More widely, much of the debate in the other place on this part of the Bill focused on clauses relating to the duties of fiduciaries or managers of the schemes. The Minister and I have had that debate a number of times, but given all the regulatory complication of setting up the independent governance committees and giving them fiduciary responsibilities to monitor the behaviour of private pension providers while exempting the private providers themselves, this just seems an unnecessary complication. Pensions are complex enough without making them that much more complex. The responsibility should be put directly on the decision makers in the pensions industry by applying a fiduciary obligation not to them themselves, but to trustees to do the job of governance throughout.

The Minister will be aware that Professor John Kay, reporting for the Government—and particularly for the yellow-tinged part of the Government, as the Minister will no doubt be aware—was clear that everyone managing someone else’s money or advising on investment should be subject to fiduciary standards of care. I have argued on a number of occasions—and if it is exhausting for me, it must be exhausting for those listening—for extending a clear fiduciary duty to those who have discretion over the management of other people’s money. The Australians have that principle at the heart of their system, and while that system is not perfect, that aspect of it makes it clear unequivocally that conflicts of interest must be resolved in favour of beneficiaries.

I am not expecting the Minister dramatically to change course at this stage, but I would just point out that the Financial Conduct Authority’s recent investigations into the pensions industry have provided substantial arguments in favour of the proposition that I and others have been advancing. We have now had numerous reports on how the market is not serving pension scheme savers well, whether they have legacy schemes or annuities, owing to a lack of transparency, charges and many other factors.

[Steve Webb]

As the hon. Gentleman says, we have discussed these issues before. Will he just clarify which of the amendments he is referring to, so that I can respond helpfully to him?

[Gregg McClymont]

I was referring to clause 8, to which the Minister has also referred, as well as referring to that part of the Bill more widely where it pertains to governance. I am sure that the Minister will be weary of the debates that we have had on these issues, and that he will be keen to set out his current thinking on this aspect of the Bill. He will be aware that this issue is central to his ambitions for collective defined contribution. If it were not, he would not have set out the Bill in this fashion.

I should like to put on record again my thanks to the other place and in particular those on the Opposition Front Bench, including the good Baroness Drake and the good Baroness Hollis. I am grateful, too, for the constructive spirit in which the Government in the other place have approached the Bill. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s observations on the issues relating to delegated powers and, more widely, on the governance of the pension schemes that he rightly wants to make permissible under the Bill.

[Steve Webb]

I shall respond briefly to the issues that the hon. Gentleman has raised. I am grateful to him for his comments, and I should like to extend my thanks to our noble Friends in another place for bringing the Bill forward on our behalf. I also share his respect for his colleagues, Baroness Drake and Baroness Hollis, for their knowledge and their contribution to the debates.

As the hon. Gentleman says, the issue of whether the affirmative or negative procedure is used in regard to regulations in clause 8 was debated at length. He pointed out that Baroness Drake wanted the affirmative procedure to be used in all cases, while the Government originally planned always to use the negative procedure. The Government then responded to the views of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee and agreed that, on first use, the affirmative procedure would be used. Obviously we could say that everything should always be decided through the affirmative procedure, but there is a balance to be struck here. The Committee wanted that, but the Government do not consider that to be appropriate because we sometimes need the flexibility to act quickly if schemes are being inappropriately caught by the collective benefits definition.

There is always a trade-off in these circumstances. Sometimes in the world of pensions, things happen that we do not expect. People might be in the wrong place, for example, or their rights might be at risk or inappropriately protected, and the Government need to be able to move quickly rather than having to go through the rather lengthy parliamentary process that the affirmative procedure requires.

We accept, however, that clause 8 is a key provision and I can put on record that it is not our intention for members who are in schemes providing collective benefits, and subject to the provisions, suddenly to lose the important protection that the regulations made under part 2 of the Bill will provide. If the situation were to arise in which those protections were to be taken away, we would want to understand the situation and ensure that it was appropriate and necessary before taking action and laying regulations. As the hon. Gentleman said, even under the negative procedure there is scope for praying against the regulations if a particular concern should arise, and for a debate to take place.

Most of my experience has been from the Opposition Benches, and during the passage of primary legislation, the Opposition always seem desperate for everything to be conducted under the affirmative procedure while the Government want nothing, but many of the affirmative statutory instruments that the hon. Gentleman and I have dealt with, over the past however many years it has been, have been over in 10 minutes. We get very exercised about the need for affirmative scrutiny, but when we get to that scrutiny, it can occasionally border on the desultory. I hope that we are striking the right balance in recognising that these are important matters and providing affirmative protection on the first use and further parliamentary scrutiny on any subsequent use through the normal processes.

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Pensions guidance

[Steve Webb]

I beg to move, That this House agrees with Lords amendment 10.

[Mr Speaker]

With this it will be convenient to consider Lords amendments 11 to 43, 45 to 48, 50 to 55 and 66 to 116.

[Steve Webb]

This group of amendments relates primarily to the new pensions freedoms announced by the Chancellor in the Budget last year, which will generally come into effect on 6 April this year. I shall begin with the pension guidance and guarantee, now known as Pension Wise, covered by amendment 10 and amendments 66 to72. The Government intend that all those who stand to benefit directly from the new pensions flexibilities provided by the Taxation of Pensions Act 2014 should have access to guidance. The amendments to clause 47 and schedule 3 are technical amendments to ensure that that is the case.

The amendments adjust the definition of pensions guidance in new sections 333A and 137FB of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 to extend pensions guidance to survivors of members who have flexible benefits, rather than just the members of pension schemes. This is needed because in some circumstances pension schemes may provide benefits to survivors of members of the scheme other than insurance-based products or cash lump sums—that is, flexible benefits—without their becoming members of the scheme.

Amendments 11 to 18 and amendment 50 provide advice safeguards. Clauses 48 and 51 were amended in the Lords via Government amendment. These contain the provisions creating the advice safeguard, which requires schemes to check that financial advice has been received before an individual exchanges their safeguarded rights for those that can be taken flexibly. Clause 48 makes provision for Great Britain, while clause 51 makes corresponding provision for Northern Ireland. Amendments 11 and 15 improve the drafting of clauses 48 and 51, while amendments 12 and 16 ensure that the requirement to take advice also applies when a member takes an uncrystallised funds pension lump sum from benefits that are safeguarded.

On Report in the other place, a second group of amendments to those clauses were made in response to the recommendations of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. Amendments 13 and 17 specifically provide for the only exception to the advice requirement that is intended to be in effect by 6 April—namely, an exemption from checking that advice has been received in the case of those with safeguarded wealth of £30,000 and below. Amendment 50 provides that regulations creating this exception are subject to the negative procedure, while regulations creating any other type of exception are subject to the affirmative procedure.

Amendment 14 provides more detail on the nature of the “appropriate independent advice” that is to be required under the safeguard. It provides that “appropriate independent advice” must be given by an “authorised independent adviser”, who has permission under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 to carry out a regulated activity specified in regulations. The Financial Conduct Authority sets out the standards for regulated activities in its rules, and that will allow it to set the standards for advice provided under the advice safeguard. Amendment 18 makes corresponding provision for Northern Ireland.

Let me now deal with amendments 19 to 21, 23 to 25, and 38 to 43, which are amendments to clauses 55 and 56, consequential on the Taxation of Pensions Act 2014. They allow a person to leave any remaining money purchase funds to a nominee or a successor. Schemes will be able to offer both nominees and successors a drawdown fund, so they need to be included in the clauses which deal with such arrangements. Amendments to clauses 60 and 61 do the same thing for legislation covering Northern Ireland, while amendments to clauses 72 to 74 make small changes to the definitions of terms used in part 4 of the Bill.

Let me now deal with amendments 22, 26 and 73 to 116, which are technical amendments to reflect the extension of the statutory right to transfer benefits and to ensure that the transfer process continues to operate smoothly after the requirement to take “appropriate independent advice” comes into force in April. Without these amendments there is a risk that the new transfer rights would not operate as intended after the new flexibilities come into force. Schedule 4 of the Bill amends the existing transfer rights provisions contained in part 4 of the Pension Schemes Act 1993 to give scheme members a statutory right to transfer a particular category of benefits, and gives scheme members with flexible benefits a statutory right to transfer these rights up to and beyond their scheme’s normal retirement age. Amendments 73, 92, 94, 96 and 115 would make consequential amendments to reflect numbering changes made elsewhere in schedule 4.

Amendments 22, 82 and 83 ensure that clause 55 and regulations under clauses 56 and 57 override any pension scheme rules which conflict with the statutory right to transfer overriding provisions for the purposes of the definition of “scheme rules”. These provisions amend the Pension Schemes Act 1993, the Pensions Act 1995 and the Pensions Act 2004, while amendments 26, 105 and 106 make corresponding provision for Northern Ireland. Amendment 75 replicates existing powers in the 1993 Act and will be used to preserve the effect of existing regulations under those powers, while amendment 98 makes identical provisions for Northern Ireland legislation.

Amendments 76 and 78 provide powers to extend the period within which a member who has received a statement of entitlement must take the cash equivalent of their accrued rights, and for the right to take the cash equivalent to lapse. Amendment 80 provides a power to extend the time in which the trustees of a scheme must do what the member requires. Amendments 88 and 89 make similar provision to extend time for pension credit members, and for trustees to act on members’ instructions. Amendments 99, 101, 103, 111 and 112 make similar amendments to the corresponding Northern Ireland legislation.

Amendments 79 and 102 make changes to section 98(1) of the 1993 Act and clarify that a member’s right to take a cash equivalent falls away where the trustees’ duty to carry out the member’s wishes is extinguished because they have been unable to confirm that the member has taken appropriate independent advice. Amendments 81, 86, 93 and 95 ensure that the definitions of scheme rules in the 1993 Act and the 2004 Act work for personal pension schemes. Amendments 82, 83 and 105 ensure that the definitions of “scheme rules” in the 1993 and 2004 Acts also apply for personal pensions, while taking account of any provisions that override these rules. Amendments 104, 109 and 116 do the same for Northern Ireland. Amendment 87 inserts a power to disapply the right of a pension credit member to transfer their pension credit rights in relation to prescribed descriptions of persons. Amendment 110 makes a similar amendment to Northern Ireland legislation. The remaining amendments in this group make a number of drafting, technical and consequential amendments to schedule 4 of the Bill.

Amendments 27 to 37 relate to public service scheme transfers. These are technical changes to improve drafting and ensure that the new safeguard applies where it should. The remaining amendments 45 to 48 and 51 to 55 are general amendments to part 6 of the Bill and are what are often known as the “back of the Bill” provisions. Amendments to clauses 80 and 81 would extend provisions to Northern Ireland, while the amendment to clause 84 would ensure that pension flexibilities provisions come into force at Royal Assent. I hope that what I have said has been helpful, and I commend the amendments to the House.

[Gregg McClymont]

The Minister raced through his text, much to the chagrin of the whole House I am sure, as we were enjoying it so much. Let me pick up on a couple of issues. We are dealing with the part of the Bill that has created some complexities because, to put it politely, it dovetails with the 2014 Act. If we were being less kind, we would say that some tensions are created because we cannot examine this Bill while, side by side, scrutinising that Act. I put that point on the record, although it has been discussed previously.

Lords amendments 13, 14, 17, 18 and 50 refer to the much-discussed guidance that those eligible to access their pension pots from April will be offered. The Minister mentioned Government amendments being tabled in the other place. Of course, the amendments are welcome, both as a necessary second line of defence and because they show that the Government are listening to the Opposition in this place and in the other place, and to the campaign led by interested pensions organisations outside the House. Why is it so important to have that second line of defence? As the Government accept, it is simply because it is one thing to offer guidance online from gov.uk, in person from citizens advice bureaux and by telephone through the Pensions Advisory Service, but what happens when an individual discusses buying a product from a provider is another thing entirely.

Much of the debate on this Bill and other pensions Bills in this Parliament has revolved around that issue. According to the FCA studies and a variety of sources, decisions often end up being much more in the interest of those selling the product than those buying it. The Government have recognised that when someone comes to consider buying a product, the provider must check that they have received the appropriate guidance, either from the services I mentioned or from other sources. It is welcome that they have accepted the argument of the Opposition and others on putting in place a second line of defence, which the Minister calls the “advice safeguard”.

That brings us to one question that relates to part of the 2014 Act, as well as this Bill: how do we ensure that individuals are equipped to make what at times are complex financial decisions about what to do with their retirement income? Much of the legislation pertaining to this important aspect lies in the 2014 Act and, on one level, is outwith the bounds of what we are discussing today. But it is important to put on the record that significant questions remain about how the guidance guarantee will work from April. That view has been heard repeatedly from those in the pensions world and I am sure that the Minister, if he is not having sleepless nights about it, is paying close attention to it.

The impact of the new flexibilities, which will be introduced from April, on eligibility for means-tested benefits was the subject of much discussion in the other place. This pertains to the guidance amendments and, more widely, to the 2014 Act, which of course goes hand in hand with the Bill. Baroness Hollis asked a series of important questions of the Minister in the other place and the Government about how this new system of pension flexibilities will work in harness with existing eligibility for benefits and, more widely, with Department for Work and Pensions benefit rules. I have to say that it is not that reassuring to hear from the Minister in the other place that all will be revealed before April. As things stand, there is still no clarity over how the new flexibilities will interact with DWP benefit rules, which will concern the whole House.

--- Later in debate ---

Let me end on a note of consensus. The second line of defence, which came about as a result of the great work of the Opposition in the other place, has been accepted by the Government and will be welcomed by Members from all parts of the House. I rest my case.

[Steve Webb]

I hope that I can respond helpfully to the two sets of issues that the hon. Gentleman raised. I thank him for using the attractive word “dovetailing” to describe what is happening between DWP and HM Treasury legislation.

The hon. Gentleman asked about the second line of defence. I think that there might have been some confusion in what he said. I apologise if the speed with which I went through my remarks put him off the scent. I had assumed that nothing I said would affect what he was going to say, which is why I went so quickly. To clarify: the second line of defence, which is the requirement on providers to ask searching questions of people choosing to do things with their pension pot, is not in the Bill at all. The amendments that refer to advice—as in independent financial advice and regulated advice—are the safeguards for people who are transferring from a defined benefit pension into a defined contribution pension with a view to accessing the flexibilities. The Bill requires them to have taken independent financial advice, and the amendments help to specify exactly what that is. I hope the hon. Gentleman is not confused. The amendments relate to the advice safeguard, which is about things such as DB to DC transfers. But he is right that the issue of a so-called second line of defence is an important one. The Government have listened. We anticipate that the Financial Conduct Authority will bring forward its detailed rules on how that should work in practice and we will be working with the trust-based pensions sector to do the same through the pensions regulator. I agree that those who raise such important issues both within and beyond the House deserve credit for doing so. I am grateful to him for the credit that he gave to the Government for listening to those concerns.

The second set of issues that the hon. Gentleman mentioned were those raised by Baroness Hollis in another place about the interaction with means-tested benefits. He will know, I hope, that my noble colleagues met Baroness Hollis before Third Reading in the Lords, and another meeting is planned to ensure that her concerns are properly addressed. I can tell him that it is largely business as usual. The intention is that the principles of the current rules relating to the treatment of pension funds will remain in place after April 2015. Obviously, we are in a new world, and we will have to consider carefully the impact of pension flexibilities and freedoms on income-related benefits and social care, but the Government want to ensure that someone’s decision to use a flexible pension product does not have a significant effect on how their means-tested benefits or social care charges are assessed.

The hon. Gentleman asked one specific question. I might have some cash in an ISA that the Government would account as capital, whereas if it were in a pension fund they might not, so why not just shove it into a pension fund? It is fine for someone to transfer money from an ISA into a pension pot for the sole purpose of improving their retirement provision, as we do not mind people putting money into a pension to retire on, but if they have done it with the intention of increasing their benefit entitlement we can still take account of the money. That mirrors existing provisions. In other words, if someone has some money in the bank, blows it on a foreign holiday or a sports car and comes along and claims benefit without the capital, one thing we will ask is where the money went. We have deprivation of capital rules so that if someone has artificially engineered their finances to get within the scope of means-tested benefits, we can deem them still to have the money. In the example the hon. Gentleman gave, if someone takes their ISA balance and flips it into a pension simply so they can get more pension credit we can simply say that we will treat them as though they still had the cash.

We think it is right to treat ISAs and pensions differently. ISAs are immediately accessible and are not long-term savings vehicles, so we think that that distinction is important. I can confirm that we will continue to have our conversations with the noble Baroness to ensure that we have addressed her concerns, but the spirit of what we are doing is that of business as usual, with the same broad approach as we had before the reforms were introduced. I hope that that responds to the hon. Gentleman’s concerns and I commend Lords amendment 10 to the House.

Lords amendment 10 agreed to.

Lords amendments 11 to 117 agreed to.

Compulsory Jobs Guarantee

Steve Webb Excerpts

Wednesday 11th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Timms]

We will be delivering a guarantee, exactly as we did with the future jobs fund. Anyone can look back at the record of the future jobs fund, where a guarantee was delivered. It will be again.

I shall say a little more about how the guarantee would work. Participants would be required, if their employer did not plan to keep them on when the subsidy ended, to pursue intensive job search for a permanent opportunity at the end of the six months. Any jobseeker who refused to take up a job offered under the guarantee would, in the normal way and in line with the long-standing conditions for benefit claims, lose their benefits. That is always the case.

[The Minister for Pensions (Steve Webb)]

The right hon. Gentleman is very careful with his figures, so he will know the answer to this question. He points to the future jobs fund as evidence of how his new scheme would work, and he says he hopes those new jobs would be in the private sector. What percentage of future jobs fund jobs were in the private sector? What is the figure?

[Stephen Timms]

Very few. There is the good example of Jaguar Land Rover taking on a group of young people under the future jobs fund, and my understanding is that every single one of those young people was kept on in their job when the wage subsidy ended. The future jobs fund was largely about the charity and public sectors; the guarantee is largely about the private sector, exactly as Jobs Growth Wales has been.

Pension Savings (Automatic Transfers)

Steve Webb Excerpts

Wednesday 11th February 2015 Written Statements

[The Minister for Pensions (Steve Webb)]

Later today I intend to publish an update paper entitled “Automatic transfers: A framework for consolidating pension savings”.

This paper sets out the progress we have made in designing a model for automatically transferring a worker’s small pension pots when they change employment.

Automatic enrolment is helping people to save for retirement, but we must help them to keep track of their pension savings. We do not want members to end up with more dormant pots, but we expect 50 million dormant pots by 2050 if nothing is done.

This is the rationale behind the system of automatic transfer of small pension pots into the new employer’s scheme when a member changes employment, which was outlined in the Pensions Act 2014. To ensure this system is workable for both industry and members, we need a practical implementation model.

The update paper is the culmination of work that has taken place since the Act with a wide section of the pensions industry to analyse different options and create a safe and efficient model that works in the interest of workers saving for their future.

As outlined in the paper, it is my aim that automatic transfers will first apply to a limited number of schemes, but will still cover the vast majority of members. This first stage will introduce automatic matching of an individual’s small pots. The individual will then be contacted to confirm if they want these pots to be moved to their new scheme.

With minimal change the system will then transition to the opt-out model. The transfer of dormant pensions will then take place unless the member decides not to make the transfer.

I want to introduce the automatic transfer of pots as soon as possible, while also giving sufficient time for the industry to develop the new systems required. My goal is for the initial phase of automatic pot-matching to be in place by autumn 2016.

The document will be available at: http://www.gov.uk

[HCWS275]

Social Security and Pensions (Statutory Instruments)

Steve Webb Excerpts

Monday 9th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Pensions (Steve Webb)]

I beg to move,

That the draft Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2015, which was laid before this House on 19 January, be approved.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

With this we shall discuss the following motion, on the guaranteed minimum pensions increase:

That the draft Guaranteed Minimum Pensions Increase Order 2015, which was laid before this House on 19 January, be approved.

[Steve Webb]

Let me first deal with what is an entirely technical matter that we attend to each year and that I imagine we will not need to dwell on today. The Guaranteed Minimum Pensions Increase Order 2015 provides for contracted-out defined-benefit schemes to increase their members’ guaranteed minimum pensions that accrued between 1988 and 1997 by 1.2%.

I should like to turn now to the Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2015—and as we are about to spend nearly £3 billion of taxpayers’ money it is good to see that the Opposition Benches are packed. As you will be aware, Mr Deputy Speaker, we are not here to discuss the Welfare Benefits Up-rating 2015 Order, which was made on 14 January. The 1% increases in that order were debated in Parliament during the passage of the Welfare Benefits Up-rating Act 2013.

Let me begin with the basic state pension. Despite the difficult economic situation, this Government remain committed to protecting those who have worked hard all their lives. This is why we have stood by our triple lock commitment: to uprate the basic state pension by the highest of earnings, prices or 2.5%. This year, as the increase in average earnings and the increase in prices were less than 2.5%, the basic state pension will increase by the full 2.5%; that is twice the increase in prices and four times the increase in earnings, which is the minimum required by law. So the earnings increase is what we are required to do by law, and we are increasing the state pension by four times that amount. Occasionally we have had debates about the triple lock and Labour has queried whether it actually bites. In a year like this, it really bites. There is a substantial increase in the state pension—far more than inflation or the growth in the average wage.

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the work he has done on this issue. Can he confirm that this approach means the average pensioner will be up to £560 better off during the lifetime of this Government as a result of not using earnings but using this triple lock?

[Steve Webb]

I can, indeed. It is unclear what the previous Government would have done if they had carried on. As far as we know, they would have used the retail prices index until 2012 and then earnings probably from 2012. That is our best guess as to what they would have done, and that would have resulted in a pension of, as my hon. Friend says, more than £10 a week less than we will be paying.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

Will the Minister also confirm the straightforward fact that if the previous arrangement of uprating by RPI had remained in place throughout this Parliament, the state pension would be higher now than the figure in this order before us?

[Steve Webb]

I will come on to the issue of the use of the RPI, because the right hon. Gentleman knows the RPI has fallen into disrepute and no credible Government would have continued with the RPI, so the question does not arise.

The new rate of the state pension will be £115.95 a week for a single person, an increase of £2.85 from last year. We estimate this means the basic state pension will be around 18% of average earnings, and my hon. Friends might be interested to know that, as a share of the national average wage, that is the highest rate of state pension for over two decades. Thanks to the coalition Government’s commitment to the triple lock, a person on a full basic state pension will, as my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker) said, receive around £560 more in 2015-16 than if the basic state pension had been uprated only by earnings during this Parliament. That commitment means that, since coming into office, this coalition has increased the basic state pension by about £950 a year.

The triple lock applies to the basic state pension, and the question is: what should we do for the poorest pensioners on pension credit? Under the law left to us by the previous Government, we are required to uprate pension credit only in line with earnings. We could therefore have done the legal minimum and put the pension credit up by about 0.6%. However, we thought that that was too little for the poorest pensioners. We wanted to ensure that the very poorest pensioners, those who are dependent exclusively on the guaranteed credit, would benefit in full from the triple lock.

Each year, the standard minimum guarantee must be increased only in line with earnings, which would have equated to 0.6%, but to ensure that the poorest pensioners benefited from the full cash value of the increase in the basic state pension, we decided to increase the value of the standard minimum guarantee by 1.9%, so that single people would receive an increase of £2.85 a week and couples would receive an increase of £4.35 a week. Consistent with our approach last year, the resources needed to pay for this above-earnings increase to the standard minimum guarantee have been found by increasing the savings credit threshold, which means that those with higher levels of income may see less of an increase.

This year, the state earnings-related pension scheme—SERPS—and the other second pensions will rise by 1.2%. Labour froze SERPS pensions in 2010, but this will be the fifth year in a row that the coalition has uprated SERPS by the full value of the consumer prices index.

This year, the coalition will continue to ensure that those people who face additional costs because of their disability, and who may have less opportunity to increase their income through paid employment, will see their benefits increase by the full value of the CPI. So disability living allowance, attendance allowance, carers allowance, incapacity benefit and personal independence payment will all rise by 1.2 % from April 2015. In addition, those disability-related and carer premiums paid with pension credit and working-age benefits will also rise by 1.2%, as will the employment and support allowance support group rate and the limited capability for work and work-related activity element of universal credit. Pensioner premiums paid with working-age benefits will increase in line with pension credit.

We have been debating the use of the CPI on a more or less annual basis for the past four years. When we first switched to using the CPI, the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) responded to the debate. He rather inventively accused us of being “ideologically driven” in our switch to the consumer prices index from the retail prices index. The choice of a price index for the uprating of benefits is not quite up there alongside the great battle between communism and capitalism, is it? At the time, however, he said:

“Changing permanently from RPI to CPI, other than in this year, and keeping things that way even after the deficit is long gone, is plainly not a deficit reduction measure—it is ideologically driven, and the Opposition do not support it.”—[Official Report, 17 February 2011; Vol. 523, c. 1182.]

Since then, there has been a great deal of analysis of the suitability of different price indices, and his view that we should somehow clear the deficit—I do not know when, under his plan—and then go back to the good old RPI is no longer credible. I hope that he will set out his position on uprating when he responds.

The right hon. Gentleman is sceptical of my views on these matters—he hides it well, but he probably is—so I want to bring forward two witnesses. My first witness is Tim Harford, who presents the BBC’s statistics programme “More or Less”.

[The Minister for Disabled People (Mr Mark Harper)]

Very good!

[Steve Webb]

I know that my hon. Friend listens to nothing other than podcasts of “More or Less”. When Tim Harford was interviewed on the “Today” programme recently, he was asked what his favourite statistic was. The nation waited, agog to hear his reply. He said it was the CPI. So when the BBC’s go-to guy for statistical rigour and reliability was asked to choose from a multiplicity of official statistics, he homed in on the CPI as the epitome of a good statistic. We therefore make no apology for using it.

The national statistician, Sir Andrew Dilnot, commissioned Paul Johnson, the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, to carry out a review of price indices. This year, we had four to choose from: RPI, RPIJ, CPIH and CPI. We have opted for CPI. The right hon. Gentleman is seeking to imply that we should use RPI, perhaps because it is bigger, but it is interesting to note what Paul Johnson said about RPI, to which the Opposition are still wedded—or at least they were, the last time I heard. Paul Johnson’s recommendation was:

“ONS and the UK Statistics Authority should re-state its position that the RPI is a flawed statistical measure of inflation which should not be used for new purposes”.

He went on to state:

“Government and regulators should work towards ending the use of the RPI as soon as practicable.”

He made it absolutely clear that RPI was flawed and that we should restate that fact, which I am happy to do. He thought that RPIJ should probably be discontinued and that CPIH needed some methodological work to get it right. So CPI is the only credible index available to us. If the right hon. Gentleman implies in his response that we should use something else, I would like to know his basis. We believe the price index should be chosen on the basis not of whether it is high or low, but whether it is accurate. That has been the policy of this Government.

[Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

Does the Minister agree that through these tough times it is important that carers and people with disabilities are given the maximum—the CPI—increase to their benefits? Is that not the fair thing to do?

[Steve Webb]

My hon. Friend is right; when we made difficult decisions about the general level of uprating, we made sure that the benefits for people with disabilities—the disability living allowance, personal independence payment and so on—were excluded from the 1% cap, and they will get 1.2% next April. It is worth saying, although I have not referred to it yet, that we base our April uprating on the previous September’s index, which was 1.2%. She will know that since then inflation has tumbled, with it being 0.5% in the latest figures published. I do not have a crystal ball and I have not seen the figures that will be published next week, but some are speculating that inflation could be closer to zero or even negative. In that context, making sure that people on disability benefits get last year’s inflation rate will, we hope, given that petrol and food prices are now falling, improve their real standard of living. So I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her intervention.

At a time when the nation’s finances remain under pressure, this Government will be spending an extra £2.5 billion in 2015-16; continuing to help support those who are not currently in work by increasing the main rates of working age benefits by 1%, and ensuring that pensions, and benefits designed to help with the additional costs of disability, are protected against the cost of living. Let me give the breakdown: about £2 billion more on state pensions, including an above-inflation increase for the basic state pension; £300 million more on disabled people and their carers; and nearly £200 million more on people unable to work because of sickness or unemployment.

In these orders, we continue to maintain our commitment to the triple lock—I would like that to be written into the law of the land in the new Parliament—meaning the basic state pension will be at its highest level as a percentage of average earnings for two decades; we continue to protect our poorest pensioners with an over-indexation of the standard minimum guarantee, so they too will feel the benefit of the triple lock; and we continue to protect the benefits that reflect the additional costs that disabled people face. On that basis, I commend these orders to the House.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for his explanation and confirm that I do not plan to express concerns about the Guaranteed Minimum Pensions Increase Order 2015. I do, however, wish to comment on the Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2015, on which he spent most of his time.

As we noted last year, this is a rather thinner debate than the corresponding ones prior to 2014. Much of what we used to consider in these debates is now covered by the Welfare Benefits Up-rating Act 2013, which imposed a 1% uprating for this year, and so is outside the scope of these orders. Uprating this year is notable for one element at least: for the first time since its introduction, the so-called “triple lock”, which the Minister referred to on a number of occasions, has delivered a higher rise in the state pension than the formula in use up to 2010 would have done.

The term “triple lock” was intended to convey the impression of great generosity towards pensioners, but it is worth just reflecting again on the history of its use. In its first year it was announced but not actually used, because it would have delivered a pension rise that was too small and so the Minister overrode it and adopted RPI. He told us a few minutes ago that he did not think much of RPI, but he used it in the first year in place of the triple lock, because the triple lock would have delivered a small rise. He was sensible to override the triple lock, because clearly it would have been unwise to use it in that first year. In the following three years, the triple lock was applied and in each year it delivered a pension increase that was lower than the increase that would have been delivered under the formula in use previously—uprating in line with the increase in RPI.

This year, for the first time, the increase will be slightly greater than would have been delivered under the previous formula. The increase in this order is 2.5%—the minimum allowed under the current arrangements—whereas the increase in RPI is slightly lower at 2.3%. It remains the case that the basic state pension for 2015-16 would be higher than the figure in the order, under paragraph 4(3)(b), if the formula in use before the general election had been applied each year since then, instead of the triple lock. Contrary to the impression that is frequently given, the triple lock has in fact delivered a lower state pension in each year that it has been applied than the previous arrangement would have done. We are often told that the triple lock is this extraordinarily generous arrangement, when, in fact, it is less generous and delivers less to pensioners than the previous arrangement would have done.

[Steve Webb]

Just for the avoidance of doubt, let me say that we are paying a pension increase this April that is four times the rate of earnings growth and double the rate of headline inflation. Is the right hon. Gentleman saying that that is not enough?

[Stephen Timms]

I am merely pointing out to the Minister that the increase is 0.2 percentage points higher than the increase in the RPI. Before the last election, the state pension was raised in line with the RPI. If that arrangement had continued each year since 2010, the state pension would be higher for the coming year than the figure in the order in front of us. I simply think that, in listening to his frequent protestations about how generous the Government have been to pensioners, the House should be aware that in every single year since 2010 the level of the state pension is lower than it would have been if the previous arrangement had stayed in place—except for the first year when they matched what the arrangement would have been before the election. That is surprising, especially in the light of the fact that Ministers keep on telling us about their generosity towards pensioners.

As well as the state pension, the order contains uprating details for universal credit. Those are currently largely of academic interest, because so few people are in receipt of universal credit. The Government announced in November 2011 that a million people would be claiming universal credit by April 2014. That was an absurd boast, as we pointed out at the time. The Government have consistently failed to grasp the scale of what would be required to implement universal credit. The latest figure for universal credit claimants is 27,000. At the present glacial rate of progress, it will be 1,571 years before the transition to universal credit is complete.

In 2011, Ministers said that transition to universal credit would be complete by 2017, a date that was then six years ahead. Now we are told that the transition to universal credit will be complete by 2021 at the earliest, which is six years away. Expected completion has slipped by four years in four years. The National Audit Office reports that £344 million had been invested in universal credit IT up to 31 October 2014, but that the value of the assets created by that date was £125 million—little more than a third of the sum invested. Waste on such a large scale reflects just how much trouble this project is now in, and the problems continue. Last October, the Department predicted that there would be 100,000 people claiming universal credit by May of this year. I recently tabled a written question to inquire whether Ministers still thought that that would be achieved. The Minister for Disabled People, whom I am delighted to see in his place, answered the question on 26 January. He said:

“The latest forecast agreed with OBR still rounds to 0.1 million cases”.

So the figure has clearly already slipped again, and that is only since October.

This debate is the last of its kind before the election, so it gives us an opportunity to reflect on the cumulative impact of the Government's changes to benefits in this order and the previous ones. That task has been greatly assisted by the publication last month of the report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies—the former employer of the Minister for Pensions—on “The effect of the coalition's tax and benefit changes on household incomes and work incentives.” It is a very revealing analysis. Let me quote the opening couple of sentences, which say:

“Tax and benefit changes introduced by the coalition have reduced household incomes by £1,127 a year or 3.3% on average...These involve an average loss to households of £489 per year, comprising an average gain of £321 a year from cuts to direct taxes, an average loss of £333 a year from increases in indirect taxes and a £477 a year average loss from benefit cuts.”

Even the gain through direct taxes is outweighed by the loss through indirect taxes, never mind the bigger loss from benefit cuts as a result of this order and its predecessors.

The report goes on to state:

“Low-income working-age households have lost the most as a percentage of their income from tax and benefit changes introduced by the coalition…Middle-income working-age households without children have gained the most”.

That is what the Government have achieved. Low-income households have lost and middle-income households have gained. That is not what the Minister and his hon. Friends used to argue for when they were in opposition, but it is what they have delivered in office.

The IFS found that households with children have been hit hardest by tax and benefit changes. The poorest households with children have lost more than 6% of their incomes and those without children in the middle of the income distribution have seen their incomes rise as a result of tax and benefit changes, as they have benefited from personal allowance increases and have not been affected by social security changes such as those to tax credits. Families out of work or with only one parent in work lost almost £2,000 a year as a result of the changes, while families with both parents in work lost between £1,000 and £1,500 a year.

The shadow Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves), published new analysis from the House of Commons Library last week that shows that five more years of failure to make work pay of the kind we have seen in the past five years, with wages today on average £1,600 less in real terms than at the general election, and wages falling short of expectations to the same extent in the next Parliament as they have in this, would mean another £10 billion in social security spending on top of the figure already projected.

The Government’s own Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission, in its second annual assessment of progress towards the 2020 child poverty targets, was scathing. It states:

“The impact of welfare cuts and entrenched low pay will bite between now and 2020. Poverty is set to rise, not fall. We share the view of those experts who predict that 2020 will mark not the eradication of child poverty but the end of the first decade in recent history in which absolute child poverty increased…We have come to the reluctant conclusion that, without radical changes to the tax and benefit system to boost the incomes of poor families, there is no realistic hope of the statutory child poverty targets being met in 2020.”

The Minister served, as I did, on the Public Bill Committee on the Child Poverty Act 2010. He argued then that the targets should be more demanding, but his legacy, and that of his colleagues, will be that there is no realistic hope of achieving those targets by 2020.

Should we be elected in May, our approach will be different. We will balance the books and get the national debt falling in a fair way. We also want the Office for Budget Responsibility to monitor and report on the Government’s progress in reducing child poverty. That is something that the OBR should do. We plan to restrict the growth of benefit spending through stronger, more balanced economic growth and more good jobs paying decent wages. We will tackle low pay and insecurity, raise the minimum wage and improve its enforcement, tackle the abuse of zero-hours contracts and expand free child care for working parents. We will incentivise payment of the living wage by employers by offering a 12-month tax break employers who raise their employees’ wages to that level. We will introduce our compulsory jobs guarantee to get more young and long-term unemployed people off benefits and into work.

We will reform the banks and end the dither on big decisions, such as airport expansion, with an independent infrastructure commission, and we will back British firms by cutting business rates for small firms and unashamedly arguing for Britain to stay in a reformed European Union. We have a radical plan for spreading power and prosperity across the country, including giving England’s city and county regions more power over their public transport networks and devolving £30 billion-worth of funding over five years to the English regions. We will tackle the housing crisis with a commitment to build 200,000 homes a year by 2020.

We could have recognised the case for a temporary use of CPI for benefit uprating as an element of a balanced programme of deficit reduction. We do not, though, support the Government’s decision to adopt CPI permanently. We do support the increase in the state pension in line with the triple lock, and as voting against this measure would have the effect of delivering no increase at all, I will not be asking my hon. Friends to vote against the orders.

When we look at the impact on poverty and on middle income households of the policies that have been adopted over the past five years, it is clear that it is urgently time for a change.

[Steve Webb]

With the leave of the House, I shall respond briefly. The right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) will not be asking his hon. Friends to vote against the orders because he has sent them all home, as far as I can tell.

Let me try to deal with a few of the points that were raised. There were lots of comparisons between the rate we are paying and what would otherwise have happened, so to be clear about the £560 statistic, the comparison is as follows: the basic state pension—the £520 comparison—is the triple lock against earnings. That is what would have happened, compared with uprating in line with earnings, but there are several different benchmarks.

On the state pension, we cannot have these debates without refreshing our memory. One of the reasons that we have the triple lock and that 2.5% floor is that the Opposition, when in government, once raised the pension by a paltry 75p. They were so embarrassed by that that they had to have a £5 increase the next year. We do not think that is good policy, so we say that there should be a worthwhile increase each year, which is where the triple lock comes in.

The right hon. Gentleman says that the benchmark is lower than it would have been if we had linked the pension to an index of inflation which the Office for National Statistics report says is discredited, so why is that an interesting comparison? He says that the Labour party rejects the move to CPI, but presumably he is not committing to RPI as he is not allowed to make any spending commitments because the shadow Chancellor will not let him. “Vacuous posturing” is a rude phrase and I would not use it. The Opposition do not like what we are doing, but to imply that in a year when we are increasing the benefit by four times the average wage and twice the rate of inflation that that is still not enough is extraordinary.

If the right hon. Gentleman wants to stand up and say, “We’d pay a higher pension,” fine. He is entitled to say that, but he has not said that Labour would pay a higher pension. He wants us to think that, but there is no money to pay a higher pension. He simply wants to imply that Labour would do so. He says that the Opposition reject CPI as the main measure, but he has not told us what it would be. How can people vote for the Labour party in anticipation of what it would do on the pension when it has not said what it would do on the pension? I hope that before the election Labour say what it would do. There was an opportunity to do so this afternoon and the right hon. Gentleman failed to take it.

The right hon. Gentleman raised the issue of universal credit, a matter which is regularly debated in the House. He referred to the current rate of progress and said that it will go on for ever. He understands the importance of an accelerating process—the need to get a benefit right and to start with a limited group before applying it to a broader group, and that is exactly what has been happening with universal credit. It is worth saying that our projections for the numbers on universal credit are affected to some extent by the jobs revolution that is going on. As fewer people are unemployed, fewer people will be within the scope of universal credit. Every time we look at the numbers, falling unemployment is one of the factors that reduce the number of people on universal credit.

The right hon. Gentleman asked about the IFS report. It was quite candid about a number of limitations. For example, it acknowledged that the figures it uses assume that everybody takes up their benefits, which we know is not the case, so that is an unrealistic assumption. Crucially, the report does not include spending on public services. We know that the poorest 20% of households get five times as much value in kind from public spending as they contribute in tax, so the fact that we have ring-fenced the key public services, such as health and schools, is of huge benefit to those at the bottom of the pile, but that is not something that the report takes into account.

The right hon. Gentleman also mentioned work incentives. The IFS report states:

“By cutting benefits for non-working families and increasing the personal allowance, the coalition has significantly strengthened average financial incentives to work for most groups.”

He says that there is a challenge, and of course there has been over the past four or five years. On one hand the Opposition say that we have not cut the deficit enough, but on the other hand they have voted against practically every measure we have brought forward to tackle it.

[Stephen Timms]

indicated dissent.

[Steve Webb]

The Opposition voted against the Welfare Reform Act 2012, which made the principal changes necessary for reducing the deficit. They recognise that, had they been in office, there would have been substantial cuts in public spending, and no doubt that would have included social security, which is one of the biggest single areas of public spending, but they have had the luxury of never having to say where the cuts would have been made. The right hon. Gentleman knows in his heart of hearts that, had his party been in office, there would have been significant reductions in spending on social security, so he cannot compare the situation with some blank sheet of paper against some benign economic backdrop. In the last year of the previous Labour Government we saw record borrowing—£150 billion, which is an extraordinary amount of money—so the idea that they could somehow have closed the deficit without having any impact on people’s living standards is extraordinary and unrealistic.

Let us be absolutely clear about the comparison figures. On the issue of the level of the pension, compared with what it might have been, £560 is the key figure we should be using. What we have done through the triple lock, and through each successive measure, means that the pension is higher than it would have been under the policy that the Labour party told us it would implement—RPI to 2012 on earnings, which was in its manifesto—and higher than it would have been had we gone for earnings throughout. Obviously, the figures depend on which baseline one assumes. The idea that the Labour party, had it been in office, would have carried on with RPI, ignoring the statisticians telling them that it should not be used and ignoring the fiscal position, is simply implausible, because it is not a relevant benchmark.

These regulations are important because they pave the way for the next step in our efforts to restore the state pension to where it should have been—a decent amount that provides security and dignity for people in old age. What matters is what people get in retirement, relative to what they used to earn, and on that measure the state pension as a share of the national average wage, and the pension as a result of these regulations, will be at their highest level for more than two decades. That is something of which this Government can be proud. I commend the regulations to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Pensions

Resolved,

That the draft Guaranteed Minimum Pensions Increase Order 2015, which was laid before this House on 19 January, be approved.—(Steve Webb.)