Current Petitions

The Executive's letter says that nearly all the £126 million that was allocated for ex gratia payments has been paid. After existing late claims have been dealt with, £235,000 will be left from the sum that was set aside for late claims. If no further late claims are made, that sum should of course be paid to those who submitted valid claims. If there are just over 12,000 claimants, that would work out at an average of less than £20 per claimant, which is a relatively small sum.The bigger outstanding issues are the responsibility of the United Kingdom Treasury, rather than the Scottish Executive. The convener might recall that the committee received in July last year a letter from Ruth Kelly in her capacity as Financial Secretary to the Treasury. That letter referred to a meeting that she had had with George Foulkes, who at the time was the Minister of State at the Scotland Office, with Transport and General Workers Union officials and with a delegation of MSPs—that is a misprint in the letter. The reference should be to MPs, because no MSPs attended the meeting; I certainly was not invited and I know of no other MSPs who were invited. I do not know the details of the outcome of that meeting, but George Foulkes, in his wisdom, should perhaps have submitted an appeal to challenge the integrity of the Treasury's decision. He would have been on safer ground with that than he has been with subsequent decisions that he has challenged.Ruth Kelly talks absolute nonsense when she claims that Scottish Transport Group pensioners have had parity of treatment with National Bus Company pensioners south of the border. The truth is that the National Bus Company pensioners got about 60 per cent of their gross surplus and paid no income tax, whereas the Scottish Transport Group pensioners are getting only about 47 per cent of their gross surplus and many are having income tax deducted. The STG pensioners are not getting even half the loaf. Additionally, corporation tax was previously deducted at 35 per cent and the UK Treasury also pocketed another £50 million from the surplus. Therefore, the responses from the UK Treasury and the Inland Revenue have been very unsatisfactory. Of course, the UK Treasury and the Inland Revenue are responsible to the Westminster Parliament rather than the Scottish Parliament, so the question arises: where do we go from here?If the committee had the power to summon Ruth Kelly before it to answer detailed questions on the position of the UK Treasury and the Inland Revenue, I would propose that it did that. Unfortunately, the committee does not have that power, and I do not think that we are making any meaningful progress by continuing the correspondence. We are just getting negative, stone-wall answers. If the committee feels that it has gone as far as it can go, I respectfully suggest that the convener should write to Mr Anderson, who started the petition, expressing regret that the replies from the UK Treasury and the Inland Revenue have been so unsatisfactory and explaining that the UK Treasury and the Inland Revenue are responsible to the Westminster Parliament rather than the Scottish Parliament. The convener might also suggest that the pensioners consider pursuing the income tax matter by taking several test cases through the Inland Revenue appeals procedure.

I place on record my thanks to the committee and its predecessor committee for their tenacity in pursuing the matter. That has led to substantial amounts being paid out to the pensioners, with average ex gratia payments of more than £10,000. As I said, I still think that the pensioners are entitled to more; however, given the fact that the Government and the Scottish Executive originally proposed to give them nothing at all, significant progress has been made. I am sure that the pensioners are grateful to the committee for its endeavours.

Thank you, convener.