Current Petitions

The pensioners have been the victims of a real injustice. It is one of the most serious that has occurred since the Parliament was created. I recently met a widow who, although she behaved with extreme dignity, was extremely upset and angry at the way in which the memory of her late husband has been treated.I have some specific points. As I recall, just before the summer recess, the committee—to its credit—expressed broad consensual support for a number of measures. Those measures were set out in a letter to the minister.One of those measures was that widows and widowers should receive the full payment that their loved one would have received had he or she survived, not the 50 per cent payment that many of them are receiving. Perhaps the committee was persuaded by the logic that whoever was responsible for the 10-year delay, it was not the widows, the widowers and the members of the pension fund. Whether the Government or the trustees were responsible is irrelevant. The delay has meant that, in most cases, the widows and widowers will receive only one half of the payment. I feel that that is insupportable. The minister should come before the committee to explain why that decision was made.Although I have yet to have this confirmed in writing, my understanding is that those widows or widowers whose spouses died on or after 18 December 2000 will receive the full payment. That is yet to be confirmed, so I want to be careful about it, but if that is the case, it is a partial concession and it is a tribute to the work of the committee that it has been obtained. I believe that it has been obtained, but I have not had that confirmed in writing and I think that it should be made clear.

I then spoke to another widow on the telephone. She is not my constituent but I spoke to her after speaking to the local constituency MSP, Alasdair Morgan. She broke down. She thought that for some widows to receive the full payment and some to receive a half payment was a mockery. It just could not be justified. The minister has some explaining to do.From a practical point of view, the money that is available for the payments might well allow for full payment without any increase in the overall total. There were 14,000 beneficiaries initially. Some pensioners will have died without leaving eligible beneficiaries such as widows, widowers or offspring. In such cases, the share that the Executive has earmarked for those people will fall into the money that is available for eventual redistribution to all the beneficiaries. We have also had specific confirmation that the residue of the surplus, if you like, will not go to Gordon Brown; it will go to the remaining beneficiaries. Members might not be surprised to learn that I have asked a few parliamentary questions to ascertain how many beneficiaries have been identified at this stage. Although it is early days, perhaps the estimated remaining residue of the surplus that could go to the widows could be calculated. That is a priority.I also want to talk about tax. I will not repeat what Dennis Canavan said, but it is outrageous that, because of a technicality, Scottish pensioners have to pay tax and English pensioners do not. We should examine the Act of Union 1707 to see whether there has been a breach of that piece of legislation. I am not a fan of it, but it is there and it should be enforceable. It is outrageous that Scottish people should be taxed and English people should not purely because of an absurd technicality.I endorse Dennis Canavan's suggestion that Gordon Brown should meet a delegation of MSPs. I also invite the committee to consider that, if we cannot get an answer to the questions, Mr Brown should be invited to give evidence to the committee and explain why Scots have to pay income tax when it is not payable by English people. Surely that is a breach of the Act of Union 1707. The reasons given in justification of the decision are patently without any merit and are absurd.I hope that I have made my two points in a reasonably cogent way.

It is really a war of words. Dennis Canavan put the issue very clearly, in slight contradiction to what you have just said. Why is there one law for tax on pension funds and a different law for tax on surplus pension funds? They are only words—and words that are being used to cause an injustice. We should be very careful how we interpret them. That is my first point. I remember well when Lewis Macdonald came before our committee and was quite severely cross-examined. I remember him assuring us that he would not just write a letter but would seek to persuade personally. That was his assurance—certainly to me—but he has not done that. All that he has done is written a letter. He says in his letter of 30 September, "I wrote to", and he was quite happy with a letter back. That is not what he agreed to do. We insisted that he should seek to persuade of the justice of this case, which we are all concerned about. He has not done that, and I think that he should be asked why he did not do that, as he promised the committee he would. Apart from all the other comments, I agree that we should bring Gordon Brown here. I would fairly enjoy that, if I am still here.

She may have said that there will be no special treatment, but what we are getting here is discriminatory treatment. What about that for a starting point?

Maybe there is decency tucked away somewhere. He might offer to come.

I have just one further point, which perhaps I should have raised earlier. We have been told only that the average payment to an NBC pensioner was £7,000. Could we ask for confirmation that that was the average and for full details of the computation, the number of pensioners and how the average was calculated?