Postal Services Bill

Baroness Drake Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wilcox]

My Lords, Amendment 3 is designed to future-proof the information-sharing provisions in Clause 24 of Part 2. Clause 24 sets out a legal gateway to facilitate data sharing between the government scheme, the Royal Mail pension plan and the employer of the RMPP members. The framework will help to ensure that the administration of the two schemes is seamless so that, for example, members with rights in both schemes will need to notify a change in personal circumstances to only one point of contact rather than two. That is an important objective that we share with the trustees of the RMPP and, I believe, with all Members of the House.

The management of the ongoing Royal Mail pension plan will be a matter for the company and pension trustees. Amendment 3 simply ensures that if separate sections of the Royal Mail pension plan are split off into separate schemes at some point, the information-sharing framework provided under Clause 24 will extend to those separate schemes. That additional flexibility will help to ensure that we are in a position to meet our commitment to seamless administration, regardless of any changes that may be made to the RMPP by the trustees and company in future. I beg to move.

[Baroness Drake]

My Lords, government Amendment 3 to Clause 24 is in itself desirable. If the Royal Mail pension plan is to be divided into two or more pension schemes, as distinct from sections, it is better that all trustees co-operate with efficient administration and have the power so to do. What is most interesting about the amendment, however, is that it reveals for the first time during the Bill’s progress that the Government's intention may be to split the Royal Mail pension plan into two or more separate schemes, as distinct from sections.

It would be possible not to split the scheme and run the Royal Mail pension plan as a segregated scheme similar to the railway pension scheme. From the perspective of scheme members, that may well be a preferable outcome, because the governance structures would remain in place, but one can anticipate that that may not be the Government's preferred outcome. As the amendment now introduces separate schemes into the Bill, as distinct from separate sections, it raises questions that I put to the noble Baroness.

Is it now the Government’s decided intention to split the Royal Mail pension plan into separate schemes post-privatisation? If the Royal Mail pension plan is to be so divided, is the Post Office scheme to be hived off, leaving the reduced Royal Mail pension plan with the privatised Royal Mail, or vice versa? What is the Government's intention on consulting the trustees on such separation?

A fourth point that I know will be of concern to scheme members attracted some attention in the debate in the House of Commons. There is no power to wind up in the rules of the Royal Mail pension plan. That is a very important safeguard for the current members, which ought to be replicated.

During the House of Commons Committee debate on 30 November 2010 the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, Mr Edward Davey, commented to the effect that inserting a winding-up provision would be prevented by the then Clause 19 of the Bill, which is now Clause 20, dealing with the “no worsening of benefits” provision. He said—

[The Countess of Mar]

I am sorry to interrupt the noble Baroness. Might I ask the two people speaking behind the Woolsack to retreat into the Prince’s Chamber, as is suggested in the Companion?

[Baroness Drake]

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary said:

“Any amendment to the RMPP rules that would allow the scheme to be more easily wound up would fall foul of the protection provided for members under clause 19(2), as any such amendment would have a material effect on members’ ‘relevant pension provision’ … and given that our intention is to take on the historic deficits for the Royal Mail together with a more manageable scheme, it would not be appropriate for the Secretary of State to make any amendment to the RMPP that would allow the scheme to be wound up”.—[Official Report, Commons, Postal Services Bill Committee, 30/11/10; col. 445.]

In view of that debate, and in view of the fact that this amendment now introduces an intention to separate the plan into separate schemes rather than separate sections, is it the Government’s position that there will be no change to the winding-up provisions in any separate scheme if and when a section of the RMPP is constituted as a separate pension scheme?

[Lord Young of Norwood Green]

My Lords, I certainly concur with the points made by my noble friend Lady Drake, and I shall not repeat them because once again she has covered the waterfront on that issue. I want to take the opportunity to say, first, that we welcome the constructive approach of the Government Front Bench, led by the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, with her ineffable charm in listening to the representations, in bringing forward a number of appropriate amendments and assurances. Our every wish has not been granted but I did not expect that that would be the case.

I pay tribute to the many noble Lords who have contributed to the debate and I would single out two: the noble Lord, Lord Low, who unfortunately is not in his seat, but I am sure that it will be conveyed to him, and my noble friend Lord Clarke, who is not with us today. He reminded us how much of his life has been invested in what we both joined as the GPO. It is also traditional in these cases to pay tribute to the Bill team, who have served us very well. I was reflecting that it was led by Jo Shanmudalingam—I probably have her name wrong. I do not know whether she is in the Box today, but I know that she is expecting her second child. I could not help reflecting that some mothers pay a lot of attention to what babies hear when they are in the womb, and play them Mozart. I am thinking of this child who has been exposed to House of Lords debates, whose first words, instead of “Mama” may be “My Lords”. The only hope is that she will grow out of it, or it might be a career destination. In any event we thank the Bill team.

My final piece of advice to the Minister is to remember what they put on the side of fragile parcels or packages, and the same goes for this Bill: handle with care.