Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate she has made of the cost of extending inflation-linked increases to the amounts payable by the Pension Protection Fund to people with pre-April 1997 pensionable service.

The Labour government set up the Pension Protection Fund (PPF) to pay a meaningful level of compensation to DB scheme members where the sponsoring employer becomes insolvent.

The PPF is fundamentally funded by a levy on eligible schemes. Therefore, any decision to increase either the level of compensation, or to provide inflation increases to pensions built up before April 1997, would result in significant increases to levy payers. It is not proposed to change the present law.