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Presbyterian Mutual Society

I wholeheartedly agree and thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I have major concerns that yesterday's announcement will only put many of the smaller savers into deeper despair. Unfortunately, in February this year, the High Court in Belfast made a ruling that investors with less than £20,000 could not be considered creditors of the PMS and therefore could not share the £20 million of income that the society has generated since it went into administration. We need Government action to resolve the issue, so that all who placed money in the PMS—both small and large savers—can get their money back. I am not suggesting that nothing has been happening to take the issue forward. I know that the First and Deputy First Ministers have had meetings with the Prime Minister and Treasury officials on several occasions. In addition, my hon. Friend the Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson), the Minister for Finance and Personnel in the devolved Administration, and Mrs. Arlene Foster, the Minister of Enterprise, Trade and Investment, have been actively engaged in these negotiations. I pay special tribute to them for that. However, the bottom line is that my constituents are still without their much needed money—indeed, the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for East Londonderry (Mr. Campbell) showed how much that money is needed and how people are hurting. Some people have been credited with talking a good talk on the issue, and have gleefully pointed the finger at others while stating that others have all the responsibility to resolve the matter. However, we all carry a responsibility to use our best efforts to bring about a solution. The Moderator—and, indeed, the past Moderator—of the Presbyterian Church in Northern Ireland can confirm that I, as the Chief Whip of the Democratic Unionist party, have hosted with my right hon. and hon. Friends a number of meetings to discuss the in-depth issues that are pressing their congregational members. Indeed, I have made a further request with the Prime Minister's office for a meeting with the moderator. In June 2009, the Government set up a ministerial working group to deal with the issue. The group was comprised of the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the Northern Ireland Minister for Finance and Personnel, the Northern Ireland Minister of Enterprise, Trade and Investment and the First and Deputy First Ministers of Northern Ireland. Much work has been done and continues to be done behind the scenes to find a satisfactory resolution to the matter for those who have lost money through the PMS. However, it is vital—indeed, imperative—that the Government here in Westminster, together with the local Administration in Northern Ireland, redouble those efforts and work to find a resolution to the problem. Savers with the PMS have waited too long; they need assistance from the Government on the matter. We have already seen our Government help to protect the interests of those who have money saved in the Icelandic banks. Is it too much to ask for the Government to help savers who have money saved in Northern Ireland? The PMS is not simply a Northern Ireland issue any more than Dunfermline was simply a Scottish issue. Only a UK solution is fair and equitable. One might well ask what the rationale was for what is believed to be the Treasury view that the Northern Ireland Executive and the Presbyterian Church should contribute to a hardship fund. That is only necessary because the Government have failed to treat PMS members like other savers in other failed financial institutions. Why were the Scottish Executive not required to contribute to the rescue of the failed institutions within their jurisdiction? I am sure that the Treasury is aware that the only resources available to the Presbyterian Church are those contributed every Sunday by the people in the pews. Is it not wholly unfair that the community that has been directly hit by the failures of the PMS should be required to pay in part for the rescue? The PMS was a completely autonomous institution over which the Church had no control, and its failure was a local manifestation of a general failure of the UK financial sector. Do the Government realise the huge sense of injustice and unfairness that the handling of the PMS issue has generated? We are talking about thrifty, decent and hard-working people who had every reason to believe that they were ordinary savers. They believe that they have been singled out for discriminatory treatment by the Government, who have shown little regard for the dire consequences of what they have failed to do. My constituents genuinely feel that the Government have not seriously addressed the arguments put forward in support of their case by the PMS lobby group. The reality of the situation is that for eight months after the PMS collapsed, London displayed a lack of interest. Although I appreciate that the ministerial working group and supporting officials have been working closely with the administrator to seek a commercial resolution to the winding-up of the PMS and are considering other alternatives to assist PMS savers before reporting to the Prime Minister when they conclude their deliberations, the savers are the only ones in the UK who have been denied access to their savings during the most severe period of the recession. In the Minister's opinion, is the idea of facilitating a commercial solution still a viable and practical option that is being followed seriously? I have been asked whether a commercial solution for the PMS would be facilitated if, as was done in some other cases, the riskiest assets were removed for separate, bad bank-style treatment. Did the Treasury consider such a move and feature it in any discussion with the financial sector? If not, is that not another example of the lack of innovative thinking in tackling the matter, compared to the resourcefulness and urgency shown in the rescue of other failed financial institutions? It is also fair to say that as recently as 3 March the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland told the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee that a commercial solution was the best solution. What role has the Treasury, which is the lead Department for the financial sector, played in seeking to interest a bank in absorbing the PMS assets and liabilities? How many meetings did the Treasury have with the financial sector on the PMS and what kind of support did it offer? Perhaps the answers to those questions would give concrete evidence of the significant action taken by the Treasury and the Westminster Government. Perhaps I should also touch on the question of culpability. Reference is sometimes made to the culpability of the PMS for the misfortune of its members, but the same could be said of other failed institutions and the culpability of their boards, managements, advisors and auditors. The crucial point that I want to make in response is that none of the savers in any of those institutions was allowed to suffer as a result. The Government's declared aim throughout was to protect the innocent victims of the economic and financial crisis. Surely their treatment of the PMS savers must stand out in sharp contrast as the exception. Indeed, the Government go even further and find the PMS savers themselves culpable for not appreciating, as the Government continue to assert, that they were not savers at all, but investors. I resolutely challenge that contention. I appreciate that many other Members want to speak in this important debate, but before concluding I will ask the Economic Secretary a further question. Does he subscribe to the view expressed by a Treasury official to a visiting delegation that a major reason for the PMS not being treated in the same way as other failed financial institutions was that, unlike them, it posed no systemic risk to the economy? In other words, the others were too big to be allowed to fail, whereas 10,000 savers in Northern Ireland are expendable. Does he not agree that that is a shameful and deeply offensive comment that fully justifies the suspicion that the Government never intended to include PMS savers within their boast that""no saver has lost money as a result of the economic and financial crisis"?" We all believe that we must do something, but time is running out. Possibilities seem to be getting limited, but one possibility that is not acceptable to my constituents and, I believe, those of my right hon. and hon. Friends, is for those honourable people to be left stranded. Reams have been written on the subject and column inches thick with suggestions have been recorded by the wise and the good, but a resolution is still not a reality. I hope that in the debate we will get cross-party support on the matter. I urge Members to encourage the Government to redouble their efforts to find a solution to that urgent and important matter. I tell the Minister to be innovative and bold, to take the lead and to make his name for the good people of Northern Ireland.