Lord Hain (Lab)

My Lords, I strongly support what the noble Baroness said and commend her for her work with the Pensions Action Group. I was Secretary of State in the DWP at the time and was lobbied effectively by her in a very good campaign. I managed to persuade the then Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, in favour of it—mostly against his initial will and as a result of a fierce argument, during which my private office thought I might be sacked. That policy succeeded. Pensioners who had suffered a terrible injustice—150,000 were robbed of their pensions when their companies went bust; those companies took those pensioners down with them—were given the assistance that I believe they deserved. I do not know exactly how to remedy the issue that was not addressed then—the lack of indexation—and whether it is through the proposal set out in the noble Baroness’s amendments. That seems to make sense to me, but I can understand why my noble friend the Minister would find it difficult to concede. However, there is an injustice that needs to be addressed. I simply wanted to make that point. I personally met members of Allied Steel and Wire—ASW—in Cardiff. Many who had served some 30 years suddenly found themselves, on the point of retirement, losing their pensions—all their plans had gone up in smoke. This was a terrible injustice. Some 150,000 workers across the country were in that predicament. The Government acted—I am proud that we did—to remedy that, but there was one gap that was not addressed, and the amendments from the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, seek to do that. I hope that the Government will find a way to accept the basic case that she put.