ORDERS (Hansard, 18 April 2000)

§ Mr. Alan Johnson
I beg to move amendment No. 82, in page 64, line 19, leave out— 'and paragraph 2 of Schedule 3'.

Mr. Deputy Speaker
With this it will be convenient to discuss Government amendments Nos. 83 to 88.

§ Mr. Johnson
Amendments Nos. 82, 83, 85, 86 and 88 preserve existing pension rights in the various pension schemes—of which there are many in the Post Office, some dating from civil service days. They protect those pension rights and transfer them across to the new Post Office company. Amendments Nos. 84 and 87 concern third-party dealings with the Post Office company in respect of land, and remove the burden on the third party to inquire whether Treasury consent to any previous dealings with the land was needed, or, if it was needed, whether it was given.
These are technical amendments, which I do not think will raise much controversy. They protect the pension rights of all those working within the Post Office.

§ Mr. Forth
That is all very well, but the Minister has not even begun to explain why the apparently simple and 937 straightforward part of the schedule that the amendment seeks to replace has to be replaced. Presumably, if the Minister were of a mind to do so, he could explain what was defective in the original wording, which I thought was self-explanatory. It would appear that there was something sufficiently defective in six lines of text for them to be replaced by the substantial wording before us, particularly in amendment No. 83.
It is an old trick by Ministers, which I have come across over the years—and officials know this as well—to slip the word "technical" into an explanation, or lack of explanation, thinking that that will lull the House into a false sense of security and all will be well. You and I, Mr. Deputy Speaker, have been around for long enough to know that that is not always the case, and that the use of the word "technical" is not sufficient to explain the replacement of six rather simple and elegant lines of text with the very long, complicated wording in amendment No. 83 and the other amendments.
It does not do the Minister or the House justice for him to expect to slide over the matter in that way. We need to know with more precision what was wrong with the previous words that required them to be replaced by this lengthy and complicated text. What is in the detail of amendment No. 83 that should give more reassurance to those for whom we have the greatest concern, the employees, with regard to their accumulated pension rights? Why was it felt necessary to go to this length of detail, unless there may have been something wrong, something rather sinister, lurking in the background that required reassurance of this length and this description for the employees involved?
An answer to that question is the very least that we could expect at this stage, not a muttering about "technical", and not a superficiality of the kind that the Minister seems to have picked up very quickly. It is one thing for old ministerial lags to get away with that sort of thing, but from a fresh-faced new boy of the type that we have before us today I find it rather shocking.
All that I wanted to do, Mr. Deputy Speaker—and I will not presume upon your patience any longer—was to give the Minister an opportunity to shine on this occasion, to put him through his paces and let him show his mastery of the amendment so that he could explain to us, but, more important, to the people most affected, what it is that he believes this will do that the previous wording did not do.

§ Mr. Johnson
I suppose that when I become an old lag I shall follow the right hon. Gentleman's example. He has made fleeting visits to the Chamber during this debate. He came in halfway through the debate on new clause 1, raised a number of points—having not even heard the opening speech by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State—and then disappeared before my right hon. Friend had a chance to reply. Now he comes and raises not a single point on the amendments, but instead asks why we have to remove elegant wording on page 75.
I note that the question does not come from the Opposition Front-Bench spokesmen, who know full well that throughout the Committee stage we explained that those measures were there temporarily so that we could carry forward a whole host of issues that are very complicated, as pension matters are. I advise hon. Members to read Hansard. I cannot understand why anyone would not have read the Hansard report of the 938 Committee stage by now. We explained that we could not just leave the position on the basis of that simple wording. We need to ensure that the people who work in the business, who are part of about six or seven different pension schemes, are assured—[Interruption.] We will see how quickly letters on the Bill arrive. We need to ensure that people are assured to every last dot and comma that their positions are safeguarded. That is the purpose of the amendments, which I hope the House will support.