Pension Schemes Bill

Lord Balfe Excerpts

Monday 12th January 2015 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Balfe]

104: After Clause 79, insert the following new Clause—
“Pension Protection Fund: compensation cap underpin (service-related)
(1) Schedule 7 to the Pensions Act 2004 (pension compensation provisions) is amended as follows.
(2) In paragraph 26 (compensation cap), after sub-paragraph (9) insert—
“(9A) This paragraph is subject to paragraph 26B.”
(3) After paragraph 26A insert—
“26B (1) The relevant compensation payable to a person must in every case equal the lower of the amounts specified in sub-paragraphs (2) and (3).
(2) The amount specified in this sub-paragraph is the sum of—
(a) 50% of the annual value of the benefits to which he is entitled under the admissible rules; and(b) 2% of that amount for each whole year of the person’s pensionable service, subject to a maximum of 40% of that amount.(3) The amount specified in this sub-paragraph is two times the standard amount.
(4) Expressions used in this paragraph have the same meaning as in paragraphs 26 and 26A.””

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the opportunity of being able to speak to this proposed extra clause at the end of the Bill. I will say straightaway that it is motivated by friends in BALPA, the union for pilots, but it also affects a number of other higher-paid workers who are caught by what many of us would regard as an anomaly in pensions legislation.

The aim of the amendment is to ask for a review of the part of the Pensions Act that covers the limitation on funds that can be paid out to people whose pensions go into the Pension Protection Fund. In particular, I refer to pilots who used to work for Monarch Airlines—which has gone into the Pension Protection Fund—many of them with many years of service, but because of the cap that was put on payments out, they are limited as to the amount of pension which they can now draw. That cap was put into place for very good reason: to stop moral hazard; to stop directors who were members of their company pension fund abusing the fund knowing that they could basically transfer their liabilities for their own pensions to the Pension Protection Fund. However, the people who I am speaking about, such as the pilots of Monarch Airlines, are inadvertently caught. They had no say whatever in the way in which the company was run. They were workers for the company; they were higher-paid workers and were paid the sort of wages which you only get in the other House down the corridor—of course, if the House of Commons ever went into the Pension Protection Fund, many MPs’ pensions would be limited as well, but no one would say that they are the directors of a company. They are the MPs of the people and look after many things, but they would be caught.

So the amendment is a measure to deal mainly with higher-paid workers, but workers who have none the less put in. We are very fond in this country of bashing anyone who makes anything that exceeds the higher-rate tax threshold, but there are many people who go to university, who work hard in our economy and who exceed the higher-rate tax threshold—they earn more than £40,000 or sometimes even more than that, and they do earn it. I have never been a subscriber to the view that we have to pay megabucks to everybody, but I have always been a subscriber to the view that a decently trained professional worker who is putting their efforts into the benefit of the country deserves a decent wage. These pilots are highly skilled people and deserve a decent wage, as do people at the Atomic Energy Authority and British Midland Airways who are caught. In this particular instance, of some 67 pilots, around 13 will lose more than half the pension that they have paid for. Part of the weakness in the Pension Protection Fund is that your levy is not based on how many workers are covered; it is based on the liabilities of your fund. If someone earns too much to get the full pension, you are still paying, as I understand it, a levy into the pension fund which is commensurate with the liabilities of the fund, not of the individuals.

I am asking the Minister to look at the PPF cap and how it works. We are proposing two ways of dealing with it: either reviewing the cap on the basis of years of service over 20 years, as the current planned change would do little to help many of those in the pension scheme who are affected by the cap; or reducing the service-related or age-related underpin into the PPF. We are basically looking for a way of relieving those workers. It would be a comparatively cheap operation, largely because many people who earn a lot of money are in the PPF. It is estimated that the measure would cost something in the order of £12 million in all over all the years that the extra pensions would have to be paid, so it is not a huge amount of money.

I am therefore asking the Minister to have a look at this matter. Clearly, the categories of people that I am speaking about are not the decision-makers and they should not be caught by moral hazard. They are well worthy of a review of the contributions that they have made and the way in which the PPF works. I have not made enough speeches in this House to know whether it is conventional to thank my colleagues opposite, the noble Lords, Lord Monks and Lord McKenzie, for their help in meeting the union that I have mentioned. I think that we are talking on a cross-party basis in asking for this matter to be seriously looked at by the Government. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Balfe]

Did the noble Lord not hear my other speech?

[Lord Monks]

I am sorry, I did not, but this one made for a nice change and I commend that example to the rest of your Lordships on those Benches and hope to hear more remarks of that kind.

The noble Lord, Lord Balfe, has admirably covered the BALPA case. Monarch Airlines is the current case, and BMI was the previous one. We are beginning to struggle as these airlines in trouble pass their pensions obligations over to the Pension Protection Fund. There are other similarly paid workers in the same category. I hope that the message of this amendment is that though this cap is essential—I understand that very well, as the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, does—in order to stop exploitation of the fund, which after all is contributed to by well run pension schemes around the country, it is very important that we take those obligations seriously.

The cost to the fund is not enormous; it is quite modest. I hope therefore that the Government will consider the idea of a review of the arrangements around the cap and that we can get extra justice for some people who are hard working, who do responsible jobs, who are not fat cats and who deserve rather better than they have had recently from the fund. I am very happy to support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Balfe.

[Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe]

My Lords, I want to make a brief comment on this amendment since I am a non-executive director of the Pension Protection Fund. I declare that interest and hope that I can offer some thoughts that may be helpful to the Committee. The PPF was set up by the Pensions Act 2004 to be a lifeboat for members of defined benefit pension schemes whose sponsoring employer has become insolvent, leaving the scheme in deficit. The PPF saves thousands of members from potential penury who otherwise would have received only a small fraction of the pension promised to them in their employer’s scheme. The benefits it pays to insolvent scheme members are paid for, in large part, by a compulsory levy on other DB schemes with solvent employers, which of course is a cost on the employer.

When the PPF was set up, it was always recognised that there was a fine balance between on the one hand protecting those who had saved and who, through no fault of their own, were now the casualties of their employer’s insolvency, and on the other, not unduly penalising schemes which had made prudent assumptions or decisions, or employers whose businesses remain solvent, providing jobs and funding for their pension schemes. One way in which this was reflected was the benefit cap: the maximum benefits normally paid for someone who is not above the normal retirement age and drawing pension, are 90% of what the pension was worth, subject to a cap.

The cap at age 65 is currently £36,401 per year, which equates to just over £32,500 when the 90% level is applied. The earlier a person retired, the lower the annual cap is set, to compensate for the longer time the person will be receiving payments. So the full expectations of high earners who have built up a number of years in their schemes would not be met. The average annual compensation in payment per member in the PPF is just over £3,500 per annum, so the average PPF member has clearly received less than the amounts which would have been earned by high earners such as those who would be affected by this amendment.

The important point to note is that the PPF board has no role or responsibility in setting the financial limits in the fund. That is the responsibility of Governments. However, back in 2004 there was a general political consensus, which I believe still holds, that there was a need to balance the interests of members against the cost to those who fund the PPF—the levy payers, who ultimately are the employers and members of other pension schemes.

There is obviously a debate to be had about appropriate levels of compensation. I have every sympathy with those who have been made a pension promise that their scheme can no longer afford. However, that is a matter for the Government and I do not want to comment on it, except to say that the PPF board has an obligation to keep the fund’s finances on a sure footing in changing economic conditions. It has a particular responsibility to balance its liabilities within a reasonable framework of constraints so that it does not impose an undue burden on the pension schemes and businesses which pay its levy. The PPF also has to be sustainable over the very long term, and the level of protection given to pension scheme members has to be such as to make that possible. The PPF has faced some significant calls on its resources as a result of big household names going bust. At November 2014, the net deficit of the 6,000 PPF eligible schemes is £221 billion. PPF provides a protective wrap for these liabilities in the event of insolvency. The amount of levy that would need to be raised to cover all members’ benefits in these schemes would be much higher.

To add a final note of caution, requiring solvent employers with DB schemes to pay more levy for higher levels of compensation will not come without problems.

[Lord Balfe]

Is it true that the PPF currently has a surplus of £2.43 billion, out of which we are asking that this modest payment be made?

[Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe]

I do not think I should enter into a conversation about that and I do not think it is really relevant to this argument.

--- Later in debate ---

The Pension Protection Fund currently pays compensation to about 150,000 people and protects around 11 million scheme workers. We should be very cautious before we place any extra burden on the fund. The argument for so doing must be very strong and, respectfully, I do not think that it has been made out in this case. While I sympathise with those who have lost their pensions, as do the Government, they will still get a significant amount of compensation. I do not think that the position of people with capped compensation is so unfair as to justify putting an extra burden on to the PPF. I therefore urge my noble friend Lord Balfe to withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Balfe]

I thank the Minister for that reply, and I am glad that we have aired this problem. It often seems to me that we as a society are very good at concentrating on fat cats, who are seen as being unworthy, and thin cats, who are seen as being extraordinarily worthy, but we forget all the people in the middle—the people who work extremely hard, often for good salaries, to keep this country going. They do not live in Monaco, and they do not live on benefits either. There is a shortage of support for what I would call “the middle middle class”, which is reflected in both parties. We see here that classic private sector pension schemes are in the PPF and public sector pension schemes are underwritten. No one is going to take my pension away from me. HMG are not going to go bust and go into the PPF. The European Union is not going to go bust and go into the PPF. As Britain will find out if it tries to withdraw, it will get a rather large bill. However, I appreciate what the Minister and my colleagues said, and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 104 withdrawn.