Pension Schemes Bill

John Hemming Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd September 2014 Commons Chamber

[John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD)]

I start with an apology to the House because I had to attend two Committees earlier so could not attend most of this debate. I refer Members to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. My company, John Hemming & Company Systems, provides software to financial services organisations, including those running pension schemes.

Essentially, we are discussing how we can give people security with the tax advantage of payments into pensions from employers over the years, so that they can retire in reasonable comfort and expect a good outcome. The difficulty with anything is always who underwrites the outcomes, and we have obviously had difficulties with defined-benefits schemes. Those have been difficult to maintain because of the swing that can occur with the finances; hence employers have lost enthusiasm globally for that. With technological changes and the fact that the employment market has been different, it has been possible to attract employees without necessarily offering them defined-benefits pensions. That is why it has tended to happen across the world; it is not necessarily because of the different political structures of different countries. The idea that this is an ideological solution is not true; it is a technological solution, and many of the economic shifts we have seen are technological rather than ideological. That has driven a lot of things in the employment market, which has gone on to drive issues in the pension market.

The right hon. Member for Neath (Mr Hain) said that had the industry got wind of such shifts, it would have lobbied like billy-oh to stop them happening. I would have thought that that was because the industry did not think that such things were in its interests, and not because they were not in the interests of pensioners. I find it rather strange that the argument that the annuities industry hates such measures is also an argument that they are bad for people who are now no longer trapped having to buy annuities. We have actuarial problems and the difficulty of managing risk. As somebody who buys and sells shares and bonds and so on, I deal with such things from time to time on my account or those of other people. It is a complex area, and there are issues of how cost-efficiently it can be managed for small schemes. Larger schemes generally get a better result because the people managing them are able to do so more effectively. There is a inherent difficulty, however, which are that these areas are complex and will need guidance.

What I look for from the Financial Conduct Authority and such bodies is that they hunt out on a day-to-day basis the people who are offering bad advice. There are obviously boiler shop operations that have gone on for years, with people saying, “Here is a Canadian share. It is a $5 dollar share, but to you $4.75”. As soon as we hear that we know it is a boiler shop operation. That is not proper share trading; it is just trying to con people into buying something that is basically useless on the assumption that there is a lot of money to be made. Even wealthy people can be trapped by that, as Bernie Madoff showed when he made off with lots of people’s money.

Unquestionably, there are those difficulties, and I worry sometimes that the regulatory process adds a lot of complication, rather than hunting out people who are basically committing fraud on a day-to-day basis. There are a few people whose business model is to con people, and there are good examples of Ponzi schemes throughout the world. These schemes will never go away because some people will always be persuaded to misuse their finances; the challenge for the regulatory authorities is to look for them, stop them operating on a large scale and offer sufficient guidance so that people understand that if it seems too good to be true, it probably is—that is always a good lesson.

There are things the Government can do that are already being done in some areas—for example, websites saying, “Slot in these figures, see what happens, work it all out and see the long-term consequences.” That could be done on an objective, trusted basis, giving people the information to make their own decisions. People retire in different circumstances: some will have a mortgage they want to get rid of, which would give them greater stability and make it much easier for them to manage things on a day-to-day basis. Having the flexibility to draw a large sum of money out of their pension fund at the start to pay down certain things would be a great advantage compared with being trapped in a particular scheme. I have encountered retired people who are in a financial mess, with debts in one place and assets in another, and they cannot handle it. We cannot design a system for people who are all the same because people are not all the same—they and their circumstances vary greatly in many different ways—so introducing a flexible system is a positive way forward. For that reason, I was pleased to hear this announcement.

There will always be priorities, and unquestionably we need to keep an eye on charges. Members like the right hon. Member for Neath believe the industry really does not want this flexibility because of the impact on its bottom line, but, at the end of the day, the money has to come from somewhere. The money invested comes out in dividends, charges, payments to pensions and that sort of stuff—no magic money can be created in the process—and if less money goes in charges to the industry, more money goes to people getting pensions, which has to be a positive thing.

I am pleased to support the Government’s proposals to introduce flexibility and move forward on what people accept is a damaged annuity market. Obviously, there is market risk, and interest rates have fallen so low that annuity rates are much lower too, which is depressing for people locked into a situation where they are forced to accept something that everyone says in the long term is of low value. I think, therefore, that the Government have got this right, and the Opposition, in criticising them, are getting it wrong, and I will support the Government on Second Reading.