Ill-Health Benefits - Non-attributable ill-health benefits
Armed Forces (Pensions and Compensation) Bill
9:15 am
Mr Ivor Caplin (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Ministry of Defence; Hove, Labour)
I am always grateful to the hon. Gentleman when he raises such issues. I thought that I had mentioned that matter, but perhaps it got lost in the barrage of papers that I was looking at this morning.
I am sure that the hon. Gentleman has looked at my CV. He realises that I worked in the pensions industry in the late '80s, when I warned various people of the actions of the Government in relation to individual pensions. Those warnings proved, 10 years later, to be wholly correct. The idea of opting people out of pension schemes is not something that I would broadly support. However, the narrow, specific instance that he has raised has been pursued by the Defence Committee.
We wrote to that Committee in December 2002, during the consultation period, explaining the difficulties that would be created if the armed forces pension scheme became contributory. The main problem is that that would inevitably lead to higher gross pay, but lower take-home pay. We judged that that would probably be deeply unpopular with our armed forces. I do not deny that the hon. Gentleman has made a reasonable point, but we have looked at it and decided that we should not pursue it.