HC Deb 30 November 1992 vol 215 cc8-9
6. Mr. Lidington

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what success his Department has had in tracing money owed to the Maxwell pension funds.

Miss Widdecombe

My Department's Maxwell pensions unit is actively assisting the trustees, liquidators and administrators of the Maxwell schemes who have responsibility for tracing and recovering the missing assets.

Mr. Lidington

Does my hon. Friend accept that many hundreds of my constituents in Aylesbury still live daily with uncertainty and fear for the future because of the robbery of their life savings by Mr. Maxwell? What assurance can she give those constituents today about the future payment of their pensions? When can we finally expect to see the distribution of the assets in the common investment fund which seem to have been held up in legal bureaucracy for far too long?

Miss Widdecombe

My hon. Friend has correctly identified the single biggest measure that could be taken to restore peace of mind to the Maxwell pensioners—the distribution of the £123 million which exists, unlike the money that has yet to be recovered, but has not yet been allocated. The trustees of those funds have now had almost a year of discussions on the allocation of the money. It is our earnest hope that they will be able to make rapid progress towards a solution.

Mr. Skinner

Will the Minister give an assurance that other firms such as British Coal which want to do a Maxwell—British Coal has pinched £735 million from the miners' pension fund—will not be allowed to do so in the future? In order to ensure that we get the money back for the Maxwell pensioners, perhaps the Minister will drop a line to Lord Walker who received £440,000 and a Mercedes car out of Maxwell just before he finished. The £440,000 came out of the pockets of the Maxwell pensioners, and Lord Walker should pay it back to those people.

Miss Widdecombe

I think that there are rather a lot of people in the other place to whom one could drop a line. Some of them sit on the same side as the hon. Gentleman. He has no good evidence that other firms are trying to do what he describes as a Maxwell. Nevertheless, he will be aware of the existence of the Goode committee which I hope will address such outstanding concerns and on which we will take appropriate action.

Mr. Madel

I support what my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington) said. There is an equally serious problem in my constituency with Maxwell pensioners. Former Maxwell employees who were entitled to a deferred pension are extremely worried about whether they will get their pensions. Can the Minister say anything more today to reassure them?

Miss Widdecombe

Yes. Through the emergency measures that the Government have taken to secure funding for the Maxwell pensioners, deferred pensioners whose pensions are now falling due will receive their pension in the same way as other pensioners. For those deferred pensioners whose pensions are due not now, but in the longer term, the solution lies, initially, with the allocation of moneys from the common investment fund.