United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority Pension Transfers (Parliamentary And Health Service Ombudsman Investigation)

“We believe the general tone of this note is likely to discourage people from transferring to the AEAT scheme…and have suggested a few places where the tone could be modified.”

What the company meant by “modified”, of course, was a strengthening of the encouragement being given to the pensioners to transfer, which is where the various promises that they were given come in. That is why 90% of them opted to transfer. The Government Actuary’s Department produced its guidance having conducted no risk assessment of the new pension scheme that was being created. This was a completely unproven company, and in the light of what happened, the pensioners would have been better with a more cautious note telling them about the possible risks. It is only thanks to dogged work by the pension campaign group that they have managed to obtain the documents—through freedom of information requests—which show exactly what happened in the process leading to much stronger encouragement to them all not to worry about what was going to happen to their pensions if they transferred.

The majority of these pensioners are in my constituency, but they are spread across the country. Ordinarily, in a situation like this, I—along with the other Members whose constituents are affected—would be signing an application to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, so that the information and advice given by the Government Actuary’s Department could be looked into. However, when my predecessor and other Members wrote to the ombudsman, and when I wrote to the ombudsman along with other Members, on both occasions the response was that it was not within the ombudsman’s remit to look at that information and advice, although the pensioners were told for a number of years that their means of obtaining redress was to go to the ombudsman.

Now we come to the point of this Bill. We will have an ombudsman Bill at some point, but it is not coming in the near future. I have discussed with the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms), whether there could be an inquiry or investigation into the case, but he has said, quite understandably, that because of the unique nature of the case—because it does not involve a group of pensions being affected in the same way—it is not the kind of case that the Committee would look into. As I say, I completely understand why that is.

The purpose of the Bill is to enable the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman to look at the information and advice that was given in this case. It is not asking for a large amount of money in compensation, and it is not condemning the Government Actuary’s Department. It is a very specifically targeted Bill, which, while it may seem small and technical, will finally, I trust, give these pensioners the redress that they have been seeking in the hope that we might honour the promise that was made to them.

That David Johnston, Andy Carter, Laura Farris, John Howell, Layla Moran, Stephen Crabb, Sir Paul Beresford, Patrick Grady, Chris Loder, Charlotte Nichols, Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown and Chris Green present the Bill.