Pension Schemes Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2020-11-16
Topic: Labor
Peter Wishart (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I am grateful to the Minister for reminding the House of the work that has been done. I am fully aware of what was discussed in that Green Paper, and I am aware of the responses. I want to come on to some of the longer-term issues, because those were not really addressed in how this was looked at, but that was a decent attempt by the previous Minister to get to the heart of this and pull it together. I encourage the current Minister not to give up and to look again at our amendments—I am going to try to convince him of this; we will see how we get on—because they are modest amendments that would help people who are caught in this nightmare. They are not a total solution, but our new clauses would considerably help those who have been caught up in all this New clause 5 would simply permit employers in a pension scheme closed to future accrual to apply for a deferred debt arrangement provided that they meet all the other tests. It would support those who are still trading prior to section 75 being triggered to use the easements before the closure of the scheme to be included. New clause 4 would allow the flexibility to waive a debt in certain circumstances to allow an employer to exit from a pension scheme where the debt is below a de minimis threshold, which the new clause would set at 0.5% of the fund value Those are sensible and modest proposals that would not cost the world to enact and would leave the integrity of these pension schemes intact. We know that the Minister is likely to oppose them, but I hope that he has a think about it, and perhaps there are things that he can do in subsequent legislation based on what is proposed. I know that he recognises the difficulty in all this, but he will offer no further easements beyond those already provided for in legislation. He also says that the "current employer debt system is intended to be equitable to all employers"––[Official Report, Pension Schemes Public Bill Committee, 5 November 2020; c. 122.] and insists that schemes must be fully funded, but setting a de minimis write-off at 0.5% will have a negligible impact on any of these arrangements There are other multi-employer schemes where there may be issues. It is staggering that there have been so few issues with these multi-employer schemes outside the plumbers’ pension, but I say to the Minister that this is more of a ticking time-bomb than a sleeping lion. There are consequences to come. Government failure to get this resolved when they had the opportunity with plumbers’ pensions will come back to haunt them at some point in the future. Introducing easements and partial solutions is all very well, but if the central issue remains unaddressed, there will be consequences for everyone involved in these schemes I will never forget the meeting when I was first made aware of this issue. I was utterly horrified that this level of debt was stalking plumbers like some sort of malicious apparition. I said to them then that I would do everything possible to ensure that this was addressed. Five years later, we have not been able to do that. It is now all down to the Minister. He can do something to lessen this burden on honest, hard-working men and women, or we can come back here in a few years with this misery still in place and this injustice still not put right. I still hope that he will consider the amendments that we have tabled this evening.