Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Work and Pensions – in the House of Commons at 2:30 pm on 12 March 2007.
James Purnell
Minister of State (Pensions Reform), Department for Work and Pensions
2:30,
12 March 2007
The question has always been one of proportionality. We introduced the financial assistance scheme and extended it to more than £2 billion. We recognise that people in these circumstances face the real personal tragedy of losing their pensions. We have always said that the financial assistance scheme is there for exactly that reason—to reflect that loss of pension. The question has always been what we can justifiably ask the taxpayer to pay. In that debate, I made the case on the issue of causality that we did not agree with the ombudsman that we were responsible for the whole of the losses and should therefore make good the whole of the losses—and the court actually upheld that part of our argument.