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MG Rover

: I will not give way. I have quite enough to say, and it is worth putting it on the record, because it is important. The reason why the Government do not want to admit any culpability is that the"““tale of greed and gullibility””," as the Financial Times puts it, that surrounds the whole episode can be laid firmly at the door of the Government and the Towers consortium. The Financial Times leader of Saturday 9 April says that it is the story of"““a spineless government taken for a ride by entrepreneurs who succeeded only in enriching themselves . . . This is capitalism at its ugliest . . . They””—" the PVH directors—"““did what any ruthless entrepreneur would have done in their situation: incentivise, strip assets, take cash out early.””" That is exactly what the directors did. The £427 million that BMW left for the company was put into a separate account for the benefit of the directors. Then the car-making plant was charged interest on the loan that it took from the £427 million. They set up a separate little company for the car loan book, in which they have a 50 per cent. share, along with the bank, and of course they sold the entire site of Longbridge from under the feet of the company. The point is that now that the company is in administration—although obviously, we hope that some resurrection can take place—they simply do not own the land on which the car production facility sits, and St. Modwen would dearly love to use the land for something other than making cars, which has not been seen to make much money recently. John Towers and his fellow directors stand firmly in the dock accused of greed, asset stripping and taking the company, the employees and the Government for a ride. There is no question about that. Indeed, one particular fact says it all. As we all know, the car company was owned by BMW. Last year, BMW made £2 billion, but its chairman, Helmut Panke, earns less than John Towers pays himself in a company that has never made a penny during the five years for which he has been in charge. It is interesting to note that when the previous Secretary of State was at the Birmingham motor show in May 2004, she defended the sums that the Rover directors had been awarding themselves. She said:"““I am very pleased with Rover's performance and I look forward to going to their stand to look at the new redesigned Rover 45. There was a very big risk involved when setting up Rover again when it looked likely to come to the end of the road for car manufacturing.””" Quite what risks the PVH directors took, I find it difficult to establish, but their greed is clearly established, as is their £16.5 million personal pension pot. Meanwhile, the other Rover car workers still face the worry about what will happen to their pension savings. That is one issue that I hope the Minister will do more to clarify, because there is considerable uncertainty. I have received written answers saying that the Government ““believe”” or that it is ““expected”” that something will happen, but there is no certainty that the Pension Protection Fund will kick in to protect the pension savings of the people represented by me and by many other hon. Members in the Chamber. We would like more clarity on that subject. As my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden said, we would also like the Minister to make clear the position of the workers who retired early, who feel particularly vulnerable about the application to the Pension Protection Fund. If that is the way forward, it will severely reduce their expected living standards. I would also be grateful if the Minister could establish for us how there can be an application to the Pension Protection Fund when the holding company of PVH is not in administration. My understanding is that until it is, there can be no application to the pension protection fund. How will we be able to engineer the moment when such an application can be made, as private assets are involved? What happens if the holding company does not go into administration? What happens to the Rover workers' pension savings, and how can we ensure that people receive the money that they have saved for their retirement? Some clarity on that issue would be particularly helpful. I understand that an inquiry is going on, but I should also be grateful if the Minister clarified whether the pension pot provided for the directors could be included in the general pension pot, so that everyone had to share the shortfall in the payout at the end of the day. Although I represent many Rover workers, I also represent many other people who are not Rover workers, but whose pensions will be subject to a levy to cover the shortfall at the plant's pension scheme. Although I welcome that, it is grossly unfair to put a levy on other workers' pensions because funds have been stolen from the pension fund and the Rover company's assets, which rightly belong to the creditors for payment of the liabilities, and to the pension fund. It is important that we fill that pot as much as possible from the potentially stolen assets, to ensure that when we pay out on what is effectively an insurance policy, the arrangement is fair, and someone else has not run off with the money and forced the rest of us to pick up the pieces. I should be grateful if the Minister talked about that. I, too, pass on my thanks for the efforts that have gone into the taskforce. I thank all the people who manned the phone lines, organised the training and tried to establish job opportunities for people. The Minister will be aware that at the moment the job situation still looks rather bleak; slightly more than 500 people have jobs, but 6,100 people are unemployed. I hope that that situation will change and that people will be in a position to find new well-paid jobs when the redundancy money finally comes through. However, at the moment the picture is not as good as we might have hoped, bearing in mind the efforts that have been made. Will the Minister set out exactly how much money has been paid from Government funds into the taskforce? I understand that at yesterday's meeting there was a fair amount of muttering about the fact that moneys had not been forthcoming, and there was a view that the impetus from the Government had disappeared, as some weeks had passed since the general election. Will the Minister clarify how much money has been paid over? A steady stream of my constituents have been expecting to have some training, which has not been forthcoming. They have not even been put on a training course. A good example of that arrived by e-mail just yesterday. Someone who wants to take a plastering course that costs approximately £400—to learn a skill that seems highly relevant, as there is a shortage of plasterers in our region—is being turned down by the learning and skills council, which is part of the taskforce. There have been significant problems with how training has been forthcoming for many workers, although there have been some success stories.