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Occupational Pensions

I agree, in some respects, with what the hon. Gentleman has said. It is important that we establish proper arrangements for confirming the security and confidence that people have in their pension investments and pension savings. We have taken action to try to strengthen those arrangements, and I am confident that we have succeeded. I also welcome the hon. Gentleman’s support for what I have said about the financial assistance scheme, which is the right way to see what further help, if any, we can provide for pensioners who are caught in that particularly difficult situation. I have listened to his expressions of concern and sympathy, which we all feel, but many people in the country will regard that as crocodile tears. [Interruption.] It is important to make that point because his party had plenty of opportunities to devise a similar compensation or assistance scheme, which it completely failed to do. It is all well and good for him to express his concern, but no financial assistance scheme was previously available. [Interruption.] He referred to when pension schemes started failing, but he clearly knows nothing about the issue, because it is utterly ridiculous to suggest that pension schemes suddenly started to collapse in 1997. We have implemented the necessary provisions and are examining further help. The hon. Gentleman has referred to unclaimed assets, which are obviously a matter for my right hon. Friend the Chancellor, and the £5 billion figure. Since 1997, there have been two significant impacts on pension funds: first, rising life expectancy has increased the costs of UK pension funds by some £250 billion; and secondly, the fall in world stock markets at the end of the 1990s had a similar impact. [Interruption.] Conservative Members do not like it because they do not like the facts of the matter and are not prepared to listen.