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Pensions Bill

Perhaps I may start by acknowledging that in my view the noble Baroness was not in any way seeking to promote a particular company, but that she was talking about the generality. I am not sure whether the effect of what the noble Lord, Lord James, said was the same, and I hope that he will reflect on his words. In the end he has to make his own judgment about how and what he speaks on. The proposed new clause would amend Section 126 of the Pensions Act 2004. That section deals with eligible schemes for the Pension Protection Fund. It would exempt certain schemes from the PPF if they had guarantees from what the amendment calls an ““authorised insurer””. I understand that the amendment has been tabled to explore whether schemes that purchase an insurance product along the lines of the one being promoted by BrightonRock also need to have protection for their members under the PPF. The Minister of State for Pensions Reform and I have met representatives of BrightonRock, including the noble Lord, Lord James of Blackheath. We listened with interest to their proposals on how a product intended to insure schemes so that they could pay scheme members in the event of the insolvency of their sponsoring employer might work. I understand that BrightonRock wants schemes that have purchased one of its products to be exempt from paying levies to the PPF and for scheme members not to be covered by the protection offered by the PPF. The removal of the protection of scheme members by the PPF is not something to be considered lightly. There are some defined benefit schemes that are not eligible for protection by the PPF which include unfunded public service pension schemes, local authority pension schemes and schemes that provide only for death benefits. Broadly speaking, these schemes already have very secure provision for the protection of their members’ pensions. The likelihood of such schemes requiring PPF assistance therefore is zero. Anticipating that new schemes of this nature could emerge, Parliament ensured that the Pensions Act 2004 has a regulation-making power in Section 126 that allows the list of exempt schemes to be extended. The PPF and the Department for Work and Pensions have also identified a limited number of instances where the risk of a scheme calling on the PPF is extremely unlikely, such as where a scheme has no active members. In these cases, schemes may apply to the board of the PPF for a waiver of their pension protection levy. Let me remind noble Lords that the PPF is funded by a combination of compulsory levies charged to all eligible schemes, any assets remaining in schemes which transfer to the PPF at the end of an assessment period, and the proceeds from the investment of these levies and assets. So if schemes are not eligible for the PPF or are not required to pay a levy or both, this has an impact on the financing of the fund and the protection it provides to millions of scheme members. BrightonRock suggests that it will only ever be marginal in terms of the number of schemes covered relative to the PPF’s universe. This may be the case, but any change to legislation would open up the market to other competitors, moving away from a ““marginal”” impact that would clearly have an impact on the financing of the PPF and the protection it provides. We also need to bear in mind that the Pension Protection Fund is a relatively new institution and it is important that scheme members, people receiving compensation and people due to receive compensation in the future have confidence in the PPF’s financial security and long-term sustainability. However, the Government keep the PPF under review and already have the power to make regulations to exempt certain schemes from the protection provided by the PPF or to waive the pension protection levy if that is desirable. At this stage, however, my ministerial colleagues and I do not consider that it would be right to open up a market in the way suggested by this amendment. If in the future we open up the market to products like those of BrightonRock, we would need to be confident that the entry of BrightonRock and others could provide long-term security for those taking out such policies. Confidence in these insurers will be equally important to those members remaining under the wing of the PPF. The noble Baroness said that protection would come from the FSCS, but I would say to her in response that it does not come without cost either in that that protection would also have to be funded. In conclusion I want to emphasise that there are already powers to exempt schemes if we wanted to do so in the future, so we do not need the amendment. However, we are not minded currently to open up the market in the way suggested.