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Occupational Pensions

As was pointed out earlier, what the ombudsman really said was, ““Look, it’s not my job to tell you what kind of redress package to put in. That is not what I am charged with doing. I am charged with telling you that there has been maladministration, and there has to be effective redress package.”” Then she said, as someone pointed out, ““Put your best people on to it. Send them away to put together an effective package, combining public funding and other sources of funding.”” That takes me quickly and neatly to my next point. At the moment, the Government are saying that they are not liable, but what if their proposition was that they accepted that there had been some maladministration and that they therefore had some liability? Let us say that they accepted that they must put together a more effective package than they have so far. What might such a package involve? It might involve taking the contracted-out state pension back into the national insurance scheme for free, possibly issuing an interest-free loan to trustees to cover the costs. Something like that happened with Maxwell. It might involve setting up a trust fund to collect money and use unclaimed assets for a rescue scheme. We could try to encourage actuaries, venture capitalists, employers and the pensions industry to contribute, as well as investing taxpayers’ money. If the guaranteed minimum pensions are taken care of, compensation for the rest of members’ pensions could be paid at Pension Protection Fund levels, as hon. Members have suggested. Alternatively, we could stick with a level of 80 per cent. of the FAS, but make payments tax free and linked to inflation. We could set up a mechanism for members who have suffered severely or who could prove that they read and relied on Government information to claim direct compensation from the Department for Work and Pensions.