Kevin Brennan (Cardiff, West): In welcoming the Queen's Speech, I am pleased to see a Bill designed to meet the needs of the NHS in Wales. It is an example of devolution in action that there seems to be a guaranteed annual slot in the Queen's Speech for legislation specifically for Wales. The National Assembly for Wales does not have primary legislative powers, so it is welcome to see Bills introduced annually in the Queen's Speech.

We have heard some interesting speeches, and I shall focus on pensions. We heard some thoughtful speeches about pensions—for instance, from the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley), although I did not agree with all that he said, and from my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (James Purnell). My hon. Friend spoke of the "engine of change", while the right hon. Gentleman referred to the "dynamo of choice". I did wonder whether the dynamo of choice drove the engine of change—

Mr. Pound: Into the lay-by of lost dreams.

Kevin Brennan: My hon. Friend finished the sentence better than I could have.

We look forward to the Green Paper on pensions. They are not a quick-fix subject, although the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden seemed to suggest as much. My hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde told me earlier that when Sweden wanted to change the law, it took 14 years to conduct a review. The Government are right to reflect and consult, and to move slowly and deliberately. Those who legislate on pensions in haste repent at leisure—and there might not be much leisure in retirement if the Government get it wrong.

I liked my hon. Friend's proposal—it could be called a third way proposal, which is hardly surprising, given that it came from him—to introduce compulsion with a small c. People would be automatically registered with a pension scheme, but could opt out and consider alternatives if they thought that that scheme was not in their interests at that time or, indeed, throughout their working lives. There would have to be a proviso: they could not expect the state to pick up the pieces during their retirement if they chose that option.

There is an injustice in pension law, with which I hope the White Paper will deal. I am thinking of what happens to those with occupational pensions whose companies subsequently go into receivership and liquidation. That recently happened to workers at Allied Steel and Wire in Cardiff—and to Allied Steel and Wire workers in Sheerness, but obviously I was particularly interested in what had happened in Cardiff.Some workers in that company were required, when they joined it or its predecessors—it had had various guises—to join an occupational pension scheme as a condition of their employment. They had no choice. Some have been with the scheme for well over 20 years, and are approaching retirement. They have paid 5 per cent. of their salaries into the scheme throughout that time. The company has made contributions, assuming that it was building a pension at an accrual rate of one sixtieth. It was assumed that those who retired after 30 years with the company—as many would have done—could reasonably expect half their final salaries, and a fair chance of security in retirement.When the workers signed up to that arrangement—as I said, in some cases it was a condition of employment—they thought that they were signing up to something that would give them security in retirement. They did not think that it was a risky investment; they thought that they would be guaranteed a reasonable pension. What they did not understand, and what I think is little understood by those with occupational pension schemes, is that when companies go into receivership—as, sadly, they do from time to time—and the pension funds are wound up or frozen, their pension-holding employees may lose everything. It turns out that final-salary occupational pensions are not the risk-free, or low-risk, investments that those workers believed them to be, and that some of them might have done better to leave their money in building societies. Pensions should be about security, not risk.

It is bad enough to lose a job, but when those workers lost their jobs they suddenly discovered that, owing to recent sharp downward fluctuations in the stock market, the pension fund had fallen significantly in the last 12 months or so. The company had been meeting its minimum funding requirement, laid down in legislation since the Pensions Act 1995, but there was not enough in the pot to meet the needs of the deferred pensioners—the current workers who are not yet drawing their pensions.

Under current law, those who have made additional voluntary contributions are first in line and existing pensioners second, but the last in the pecking order for anything left in the scheme when a pension fund is wound up when a company goes into receivership are the existing work force. They are often the best and most loyal workers who have stuck with the company for decades and who will not have been laid off or sacked.

In the case of Allied Steel and Wire in Cardiff, the latest information that we hear from some members of the work force—we do not have hard and fast information, because we have not yet seen the interim report by the independent trustee appointed to wind up the pension fund—suggests that some of the deferred pensioners may end up receiving from the occupational pension scheme a pension that amounts to as little as 20 per cent. of what they might have expected from their final salary scheme if the company had not gone into liquidation. It is a jaw-dropping injustice for people to pay into an occupational pension scheme and face that prospect after being loyal workers in a company.

Worse still, under the current system, if such people are concerned about what is happening and write to the independent trustee who is appointed to value the fund, purchase the annuities for existing pensioners and do whatever is necessary to wind it up, he will charge the fund £300 for his reply. In some cases, the independent trustees of smaller occupational pension funds that have been wound up have depleted the bulk of the resources, leaving the workers with nothing. There is no limit on what the trustees can charge for their services. Very few companies engage in such work, so they can charge whatever they like. Their position is the only example I know of one in which the person who is appointed can write their own cheques for as much as they like in return for doing the job. There is every incentive in the system for trustees to prevaricate and drag their heels.

Another injustice is the way in which occupational pension funds are used to provide early redundancies, especially for those in management. In the case of Allied Steel and Wire, two of the company's managers, who had inside knowledge of its financial status, left less than a year before it went into receivership, taking with them a large chunk of the pension fund. Those people, who are in their 50s, are now back in employment, working as consultants in highly paid positions, leaving the workers with nothing.

I had thought that it was shareholders and the banks that lend money to companies that are supposed to bear risks. In this case, however, the people who bear the greatest risk to their livelihood in retirement are the workers. That cannot be right and I hope that the Government will put it right. The pension fund does not even have secured status when it comes to seeking the money that is to be paid back. That cannot be right and is a fundamental injustice.

I hope that, when the Government publish their Green Paper on pensions, they will consider that issue closely and ensure that what they publish is about security and fairness in retirement for workers, and not insecurity and injustice of the sort that has been suffered by the steelworkers from Cardiff.