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Superannuation Bill

The reasons it was declared illegal relate to the standing of the original legislation—the Superannuation Act 1972—and there is nothing preventing the Minister for the Cabinet Office and his colleague the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner from sitting down tomorrow with the six trade unions and taking our February 2010 proposals as the starting point for negotiations. I urge the right hon. Gentleman to do that—he is in his place now. I was just reminding the House that he accepted that had the proposals gone through before the election, there would have been a pressing case for leaving it well alone. We are where we are, but it is fair to suggest that that could be the starting point for negotiation. I ask again: what is fair about sending a message to loyal, dedicated, hard-working staff that they would be better off if they decided to go voluntarily, rather than staying in the job that they are committed to and running the risk of being made redundant compulsorily, resulting in a 20% reduction in the payment that they would receive? My hon. Friend the Member for South Down (Ms Ritchie) asked what was fair about deep cuts in the conditions of staff who run the very services on which those with the least in our society depend, including jobcentre staff and those who deal with tax credit claims. I shall turn now to what I regard as the misuse of a Bill in the pursuit of these draconian changes to the civil service compensation scheme. I particularly commend the pertinent comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Cathy Jamieson), who has considerable experience as a Minister in Scotland. Mr Speaker, you will be pleased to know that I shall not comment on whether or not this should be a money Bill. I am sure that you will take advice on that and make your decision when the Bill finishes its proceedings in this place. I am sure that you will not need advice from me; you will get it from others. Having heard the promise of so many reforms and changes, it was bizarre, so early in this Parliament, to hear Ministers openly saying that they hoped they would never need to use the Bill. How bizarre is that, so early in the Parliament? Government Bills should be about putting policy into legislation, not about providing negotiators with a backstop bargaining chip, especially when so much about the Bill remains unclear and uncertain. The 12-month and 15-month caps are entirely arbitrary; they have been plucked out of the air. No rational explanation has been given, and no evidence brought forward, to explain why those time periods have been chosen. The equality impact assessment does not even acknowledge the potential impact on older and longer-serving civil servants, who stand to lose huge sums of money and who might very well be those who find it the most difficult to find alternative employment. Ministers cannot tell the House how much money would be saved as a result of the Bill, because they do not yet know how many civil servants will be made redundant as a result of their cuts. Perhaps the Minister could say a little more in his winding-up speech about the negotiations. I recognise the constraints involved, and I do not expect him to carry out negotiations across the Dispatch Box this evening, but even an indication about the mood of the negotiations would assist hon. Members. Are Ministers close to agreement? Does the Minister believe that the Bill will actually be needed? When are the next meetings scheduled to take place? Does he expect to be able to come back after the conference recess and tell us on Report that substantial progress has been made, and that we might not need the Bill after all? If he is not going to table amendments when the Bill goes into Committee—the Minister for the Cabinet Office indicated that it was not his intention to do so—will he heed the advice of the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns) that he should go as far as he can to indicate the kind of measures that he and his colleagues are considering? My hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington is right: it is unacceptable to expect hon. Members to vote for a Bill that is so far-reaching in its impact without knowing the detail of the provisions that sit beside it. If the Minister cannot go a little further in providing that detail, I believe that any sensible Member will be forced to conclude that words about fairness are just that, and that the only way to vote tonight is in favour of the reasoned amendment and against the Bill.