House of Commons Third Reading

Extracts from the Commons Third Reading..

On 19th May the OPA was quoted during the debate concerning the 6th April 1997 cut-off date for indexation under the terms of the Pensions Protection Fund. However the government argued that this would make the PPF unaffordable. More..

The full text of the bill can be downloaded from here (1Mb). However please note that the government tabled no less than 28 new clauses and 128 amendments during the Third Reading.

The official Factsheets on the Pensions Protection Fund, the Pensions Regulator and taking the state pension later can be downloaded by clicking on the titles (about 150kb each).

The House of Commons Standing Committee B considered a large number of amendments and the Hansard reports of its proceedings can be found here. For the amendments submitted by the OPA - click here for a summary

OPA Brief
OPA had prepared a briefing paper for MPs with our main comments which was quoted on three occasions during the Second Reading debate:

Nigel Waterson (Shadow Minister for Pensions) said: The Occupational Pensioners Alliance, which points out that because of the indexation proposals there will not be increases for pensioners who retired before 6 April 1997. That could mean in practice that they receive only 70 or 80 per cent. of the value of their pension promise.

Sir John Butterfill (Chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Occupational Pensions) said (appropos actuarial reports): There should be clarity about what is contained in those reports. The Occupational Pensioners Alliance says that there should be transparency and that their contents should be available to scheme members and their trade unions, and I sympathise with that view.

And he also said: The Bill does not make it clear whether the PPF will have any indexation, which is another issue raised by the Occupational Pensioners Alliance.

Steve Webb also picked up our concerns on the selection of Member Nominated Trustees.

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...there will not be increases for pensioners who retired before 6 April 1997. That could mean in practice that they receive only 70 or 80 per cent. of the value of their pension promise.

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