---

Financial Assistance Scheme (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2007

I thought you were going to ask a question about prisons there. We have heard further criticism of the way in which FAS operates and the speed at which it has been making payments, but I remind Members of the Committee that the operational unit has paid out more than £11 million. It is making real progress, and will continue to work closely with schemes to obtain the necessary data to enable us to pay affected members as soon as we are able. We are making steady progress on payment numbers. I should have quoted numbers earlier: we expect to reach around 4,000 payments by the end of this year subject to confirmation of personal details. I hope that Members of the Committee will therefore join me in supporting the aims of the FAS to provide help to those people most affected by pension losses. I understand that many Members of the Committee are frustrated at not being able to examine the final recommendations of the Young review and the Government’s response before this debate. While I sympathise with such feelings, I hope that, whatever our conflicting views on the overall policy, we can today make progress towards getting assistance to more people as quickly as possible, and these regulations are ours to do that. I therefore commend them to the Committee. On Question, Motion agreed to.