My Lords, these amendments reflect an issue about which I know many noble Lords feel strongly. Before I address the amendments themselves, perhaps I may remind the House of the context and the background.
These forces are made up of civil servants directly employed by the Ministry of Defence. Although there are some similarities with their counterparts in the Home Office police and the local authority fire and rescue services, their terms and conditions of employment are set by the Ministry of Defence and are therefore materially different in many respects. As civil servants they benefit from provisions which are not available to their non-MoD counterparts, such as the Civil Service compensation scheme, injury benefit provisions, relocation and leave allowances. The amendments being suggested would fundamentally alter the status of these individuals and that should not be carried out lightly.
I should remind the House that, as civil servants, individuals joining these forces currently have access to the Principal Civil Service Pension Scheme. This means that since 2007 those joining these forces have had a normal pension age of 65. The amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, would reduce that pension age to 60. He has already referred to this argument, but I shall make it again. Such a reduction in pension age runs counter to the Government’s aim of managing the risks associated with increasing longevity. It would also make these workforces unique in seeing a five-year decrease in their pension age as a result of these reforms.
Furthermore, there are a number of problems associated with the specific amendments that have been proposed. First, it is not clear how the amendments proposed by the Opposition would be implemented. The institutional architecture required for these workforces to become part of the non-MoD fire and police schemes would need to be established, bringing with it additional cost. The non-MoD fire and police schemes are locally administered and early work suggests that in order to include the DFRS and MDP in these schemes, equivalents of elected police commissioners and fire authorities would need to be established for these forces. The schemes are also discussed and established through fora which the MoD forces do not participate in, and which are not designed to cater for them, such as the Police Negotiating Board.
The amendment would also split the remuneration of these individuals so that their pay and other conditions are controlled by the Ministry of Defence while their pension entitlement would be set by either the Department for Communities and Local Government or the Home Office. This will potentially place financial risks on the Ministry of Defence over which it has no control and, more importantly, would prohibit the MoD from taking a view on appropriate remuneration for these forces in the round.
However, the Government are not deaf to the concerns of the House. I have listened carefully to the arguments for providing these groups with additional protection. I have, as the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, mentioned, also met representatives from the groups themselves to hear their concerns. One of the issues that they highlighted was that as SRA and NRA increases in the decades
ahead, the disparity between their retirement age and that of their civilian counterparts would be increased and their retirement age would move towards 68. They believe that such further increases in retirement age would be unfair and unreasonable, and I agree. Therefore, I held discussions with colleagues in the Treasury and the Ministry of Defence. As a result, the Ministry of Defence pledged to look at appropriate ways in which the issue could be managed so that retirement at 65 could be maintained in the new pension schemes established by the Bill when they are implemented in 2015.
This is a sensible way for the issue to be resolved. The details of these changes should be discussed by the employer and their employees, and, for the MDP in particular, in conjunction with the consideration already under way of their wider terms and conditions. In the light of these arguments, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
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