Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD)

My Lords, I will say only a couple of things. The first is that this is asking for a review and transparency. It is necessary for us to know the liabilities that are stacked up; there is no getting away from that. My experience in this came in the financial crisis, when I was in Europe and chair of the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee. We were doing battle with the IMF and the troika and all the cuts that were happening to pensions—for instance in Greece, where they halved all the defined benefit pensions. Over time, the courts have reinserted a lot of them, so they have come back again. That reflects the point about bargains and promises being made—although we have heard today about promises being made and then not happening for some of the erstwhile public sector that unfortunately went through a privatisation. I see nothing wrong with a review and nothing wrong with the cost of these things being more public knowledge, and I am also for a considered look at whether they have to phase out in the future, whether we have to pay more for these jobs and whether we have to have something that is more together. Although different people might be on different sides of the argument, the fact is that if the crunch time comes—if we have to have the IMF in—I know where the finger will be pointing first, because “been there, done that”. So, let us have a review.