Clause 81 - The board of the Pension Protection Fund

Part of Pensions Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 4:00 pm on 23 March 2004.

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Photo of Malcolm Wicks Malcolm Wicks Minister for pensions, Department for Work and Pensions 4:00, 23 March 2004

I thank hon. Members for their contributions. In my introductory remarks on the clause, which sets up the board, I thought it appropriate to make some general observations. I am grateful to you for allowing me to do that, Mr. Cran. It has led to a fairly wide-ranging debate about the PPF, and I am not too tempted to deal with specific points that will come up in respect of later clauses. I shall deal with the other points in reverse order.

I thank my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Redcar for her support for the pension protection fund. I seriously believe and predict that it will be seen as a major force for security in old age. It will be regarded by future parliamentarians, workers and others as a substantial social advance in our country. We are learning lessons from the experience of the American Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, taking on board many of its arrangements and policies and changing arrangements, when appropriate, for this country.

When I visited Washington, I met a Republican Senator, Democrat politicians, the trade union side, the employers' side and staff at the PBGC and elsewhere, but I met no one who suggested that the United States could now do without the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, for which there was strong support. At one level, I could ask Conservative Members in this country to be as supportive of such things as I think the Republicans are in the United States.