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Occupational Pensions

May I give a general welcome to what the hon. Gentleman said in response to my statement? I think that it is worth pointing out one or two things to him and to his hon. Friends. It is true that previous Governments have rejected previous findings of ombudsmen’s reports. Anyone listening to the hon. Gentleman would probably conclude that this was the first time it had ever happened, and of course that is not true. Nor is it true to say that people have been left high and dry, which was the term that he used. I think that £2.3 billion of public investment in a financial assistance scheme certainly does not mean leaving people high and dry. We always made it clear that we were not in a position to compensate fully all the losses that people had sustained, and that remains our position. In relation to how many people have received help, it is worth bearing in mind one important fact. We think that the financial assistance scheme will cover about 40,000 of those who have suffered a loss. Obviously, not all of them have reached retirement age yet, so it is ludicrous and fatuous to say that, because only about 1,000 people have received payment, the whole scheme is failing. That is not an accurate or fair interpretation of events. On the hon. Gentleman’s wider points about the financial assistance scheme, let me remind him of what I said in my statement about the European Court of Justice ruling. We are already looking at the adequacy or otherwise of the financial assistance scheme as part of our consideration of the implications of that judgment. He repeated the comments of the Leader of the Opposition yesterday. I made it clear in my statement that we are prepared, of course, to discuss these issues with the other political parties in the House. That is the right and sensible way to proceed. On the hon. Gentleman’s points about unclaimed assets, it is worth all of us keeping our feet firmly on the ground. Initial records searches by banks and building societies suggest that several hundred millions of pounds may currently lie unclaimed. There might be an annual income flow of about £10 million or £20 million, but that is not going to be an income stream on which we can rely to make the pensions commitments that he wants to make. As he must know, there is not a parallel between unclaimed pension assets and unclaimed assets in bank accounts. He must be aware of that.