New Clause 6
Pensions Bill
6:00 pm
Andrew Selous (Shadow Minister, Work & Pensions; South West Bedfordshire, Conservative)
I agree with everything that my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne has said. I have an interest, because some of my constituents were affected by the events involving the Dexion pension scheme in Hemel Hempstead, which is not far from my constituency, and one or two were affected by the collapse of the Albert Fisher pension scheme, although that is somewhat further away from Bedfordshire.
I simply want to continue on the point of trust which my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne mentioned. I say this as someone who wants personal accounts to succeed, and who genuinely wants to be part of this consensus and to have a much better system of state and private pension provision. There is unfinished business here, and the Government have an obligation to clear the decks and try to get a slightly more just settlement for those 125,000 people who feel incredibly hard done by in terms of the guarantees that they thought they had.
It is all very well for people like us to stand up in Committee and elsewhere and make these points. I want to quote three paragraphs from a lady called Anna Roberts. She wrote this in 2003 when she was 33 in an excellent document that I have referred to before produced by Age Concern and the Fawcett Society. It was principally on women’s pensions, but the point that she makes here about trust is so relevant and shows why new clause 6 is important in helping personal accounts to get off to the best possible start. Anna Roberts said:
“I don’t have a private pension and have never seriously considered joining a pension scheme, despite working full time and earning a decent salary.
Like the majority of people I know, I am incredibly cynical about pensions and would rather look at other ways to plan for my retirement. I think that buying a property or investing in a second home is a much safer option.
I do not trust the pensions system. There are so many stories reported in the press about people who lose out after making years of contributions. At the moment I just don’t think it is worth taking the risk.”
I suspect that this lady’s view has become even more cynical, given the coverage that those 125,000 people have received.