28 October 2005
Sixty-six MPs have signed a parliamentary motion urging Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott to extend last week's surprise deal on unfunded public sector pensions to local government.
The growing support for concessions on employees' retirement plans to be extended to the Local Government Pension Scheme has heaped pressure on Prescott in advance of a critical LGPS meeting.
Prescott will chair the government/ employers/trade union tripartite committee on November 2. He will be presented with evidence from Unison of widespread MPs' support for the Public Services Forum deal on pensions to be extended to town halls.
Trade and Industry Secretary Alan Johnson last week reached agreement with unions representing millions of health, education and civil service staff that he would not raise the pension age for existing pension scheme members from 60.
In return, the unions involved have provisionally agreed that new members to occupational schemes would have a pension age of 65 from 2006.
The LGPS was exempted from the PSF agreement on the grounds that it is a funded scheme that has been subject to a pension age of 65 for new members since the mid-1990s. Unison, the T&G and the GMB are leading the campaign to protect payouts for members who joined the scheme before the switch – a benefit that the Employers' Organisation for local government wants removed on cost grounds.
As Public Finance went to press, signatories to an early day motion calling for the PSF deal to be extended included Labour stalwarts Paddy Tipping, Dennis Skinner, Angela Eagle and Diane Abbott.
Members of the Commons influential public administration and ODPM select committees, including Gordon Prentice and John Cummings, also backed the motion.
Heather Wakefield, Unison's national officer for local government, said: 'There is significant support for the PSF deal at local government level. The Cabinet has backed it, MPs have backed it – we just need John Prescott to see sense now.'
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