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Occupational Pensions

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his opening remarks. The essence of our argument is that we strongly dispute the findings of maladministration, and I have tried to explain to the House why that is so. That is an entirely proper and sensible thing for any Minister to do, particularly when significant amounts of taxpayers’ money are involved. I suspect that a Conservative Minister would have done exactly the same. What we have to do now—this is where I agree with the hon. Gentleman—is see whether there is scope for doing more to help more people. I have confirmed today that we are doing that. I want to return to an important issue that goes to the heart of this argument. I hear every Conservative Member saying that we should pay out in full for everyone covered by the ombudsman’s report, even when the ombudsman herself indicated, in relation to some of the scheme failures, that individuals had the opportunity to mitigate their loss. I am slightly confused by the hon. Gentleman’s suggestion that, even in those cases, the taxpayer should be required to pay out to meet the losses, given that the evidence that links the alleged maladministration with the loss is not substantiated in her report.