Item 6 on the agenda is the Member debate under Standing Order 11.21(iv) on Allied Steel and Wire pensions and I call on Bethan Sayed to move the motion. Bethan.

Motion NDM6919 Bethan Sayed

Supported by Andrew R.T. Davies, Mike Hedges, Helen Mary Jones, Leanne Wood, David Rees

To propose that the National Assembly for Wales:

1. Notes that former Allied Steel and Wire workers have still not received the full value of their pensions, despite a compensation deal reached in 2007 with the former UK Government and almost 14 years after a change in UK law.

2. Notes that under a compensation deal reached in 2007 with the former UK Government, workers were promised the same treatment as workers and pension scheme holders under the pension protection fund and financial assistance scheme.

3. Notes that under law changes since 2004, workers under the pension protection fund and financial assistance scheme are entitled to be paid up to 90 percent of their pension contribution value. However, contributions paid in prior to 1997 are not inflation proofed.

4. Regrets the financial hardship this has caused to former ASW workers in Wales.

5. Calls on the UK Government to honour the spirit of the commitments the previous UK Government made to ASW workers in Wales.

Motion moved.

Diolch. I'd like to first of all thank the campaigners, especially John Benson, who, despite years of fighting for their rights and basic fairness and justice, have not given up hope and have not caved in to Governments at Westminster that have either treated them with contempt or with basic ignorance and silence over the years. We don't want to bring this debate again to the Assembly. When I talked to somebody this morning, they said, 'Oh, that debate again. That issue again.' Well, the only reason we're bringing this debate here today is because things have not been rectified, things have not been sorted in relation to the Allied Steel workers’ pensions.

So, this issue has been going on for many, many years. The workers at Allied Steel and Wire in Cardiff first found themselves facing a loss of their pensions in 2002. ASW was a big employer in Cardiff, and it’s easy to forget now, with the changes that have taken place in this city, how we did attract those big industrial employers. Some of the workers here today worked at ASW for 40 years prior to its collapse. They had paid into pensions that they assumed were going to be safe. They believed that they would be rewarded for their years of hard work with a retirement pension that would reflect their years of service, and they were wrong.

I understand that this is a debate that we've had before in this Assembly. In fact, I set up a cross-party group with many of you in this Chamber in the last Assembly term to try and grapple with this issue. And I also understand that this is not a devolved issue. I genuinely would hope that if it were a devolved issue, we would have corrected this injustice and that we would have done something very, very different indeed. But it isn’t, and the point of this debate here today is to try and work with the campaigners and to raise this up the political agenda again. I’ve said in numerous debates that we've had—be it on international affairs, be it on issues that are non-devolved—that we have to show moral leadership on these issues if we can’t make the political decisions here in Wales.

Now, when I was involved with the former Visteon pensions dispute—or Ford, as many of the campaigners at the time would have called it—I and others said that a pension was a salary deferred. It is not a cushy bonus, it is not a severance payment, it is not a golden parachute. It is a worker contribution deferred salary to ensure security and stability in old age. We all expect that. We all want that. In fact, that’s what we were debating in the previous debate here today, about how we want that respect when we are all older. But why do we not do it in this regard to ASW workers who deserve the right to have that pension? So, for people such as ASW pensioners, the Visteon workers, or those involved with Equitable Life and so many other companies who have lost part of their pensions, this is what we should call it; we should call it theft by those companies who take the well-earned salaries, the well-earned pensions out of the pockets of the people that they should have been supporting. And we should keep that in mind throughout this debate.

I think it’s worth going through the timeline, very briefly, of this campaign, so we can remind ourselves just how much of a tough slog it’s been for those campaigners. So, ASW collapsed and went into receivership in 2002. The majority of the workers were made redundant, and although the plant was acquired by the Spanish firm Celsa a year later, it was too late for many of those previously employed. It emerged during the course of talks between ASW, the then Welsh Assembly Government and the UK Government that there was a £21 million shortfall in the company pension funds. Despite a buyer being found for the facility, this did not include a return of guaranteed pension for workers made redundant. Eventually, most workers were offered around 40 per cent of their expected pension value—nothing at all close to what they deserved. So, a campaign was started, and many believed it had been successful when the then UK Labour Government announced the financial assistance scheme and, a year later, the pension protection fund.

Now, it’s easy to forget that, in 2002, the current system we have did not exist. At the time, there was a growing spectre of so-called wind-ups—workers no longer being paid the pensions they were promised and paid into based on length of service and their final salary at retirement, instead receiving whatever the schemes could afford to pay after the pensions of existing pensioners had been secured. The point of a wind-up was a sharp and immediate cost-cutting measure on the backs of workers, stealing from the workers, some of whom had paid into the pension schemes from many, many years. Tens of thousands of workers across the UK in various industries were affected in some way by closures, by companies and how they collapsed, and that was how their pensions were treated so disrespectfully.

So, the fact that the ASW workers’ strong and public campaign, backed by people such as Ros—now Baroness—Altmann, was successful in changing the law and introducing Government-backed pension security schemes is a huge achievement. Members here today, I know, will shudder to think of what might have happened to large numbers of Welsh workers had a scheme like the PPF not been set up, however imperfect that scheme is. But the ASW workers have not been given a fair share or fair treatment by successive UK Governments, despite the hard work of campaigners. So, the situation remains today that campaigners have not received anywhere close to the 90 per cent of the value of their pensions. In fact, the campaigners who are now in the FAS get no inflation indexation protection for their pre-1997 contributions, they get very little for post-1997 contributions, and have to suffer a payment cap also. The longer someone worked for this company, the worst position they are likely to find themselves in. There are people in this campaign group who gave 40 years of service to steelworking in Cardiff—and not just in Cardiff. There are people in Kent for whom this situation is just as real, for people who worked hard all their lives in good, skilled jobs with a good salary, to find, in their later years, what was one of financial worry. And I think this is an outrage. An outrage that was born in the original legislation and one that has not been corrected the UK Government.

Now, I am conscious of time and I'd like to close by reading a quote from John Benson who has been diligent in keeping in touch with me and other AMs in this room on this issue. I know that although I don't represent his region, pension justice is something that I care passionately about, although I'm not in pensionable age yet. Despite that fact, I've worked diligently, as hard as I possibly can, with this campaign and with the Visteon pensioners in the past to try and fight for the pensions that they deserve. And it's phenomenal being part of the Visteon campaign—people were just spending all of their time in retirement on campaigning as opposed to actually enjoying the fruit of their labour. So, this is what John said, and then I'll finish with this: 'Almost 17 people have passed away and they're still being robbed of the pensions the Governments encouraged them to save in. That retirement dream has been shattered by Governments' flawed legislation. Many of these decent, hardworking men and women, it must be said, have been inhumanely betrayed by successive Governments. They don't deserve to be treated so unfairly; they put their trust in Governments and that trust was betrayed.'

We have a duty to support and help those former ASW steelworks. I hope that we can do justice to their cause and continue to raise this issue on the highest levels of political engagement, make sure that action is taken, and support John and people like him.

I welcome the opportunity to speak in this debate and, in particular, the initiative that the Presiding Officer did at the start of this Assembly to bring these formats of debates forward so that Members can bring issues like this, which aren't in the devolved competence, but do affect many of our constituents and we do have a view on it. And I do pay a special tribute to John and Phil who are up in the gallery this afternoon, and in particular the campaigners as well who have surrounded themselves in this campaign, because it is about justice and it is about natural justice here.

When I was looking into this issue over the last couple of days, refreshing my memory of the campaign, I read that the UK Government said that payments were following the legal requirements. Well, there's a moral requirement here, I have to say, and successive Governments have failed to live up to their moral obligations in this particular area.

Bethan, in her closing comments, said, 'I'm not a pensioner yet', and I don't mean this in a derogatory way in any shape or form, but we all think about what we want in our retirement, and many, if not all of us, try and put some form of provision in place, and the workers that are affected—by this shortfall that has happened, in one breath, if you want to be kind; robbery in another breath if you want to be brutally honest—have had their future taken away from them. The individuals concerned did what was right—they put a percentage of their income into a pot. That pot was, they thought, secure, and when they came to retirement age, that would have provided the creature comforts and the ability to have a retirement that they'd planned for all their working lives.

And across the workforce, some would have had more than others to lose, but each and every one of the workers at ASW, and many other operations across the United Kingdom, not just here in Wales, have had that retirement taken away from them. And there's an obligation on politicians, whatever walk they come from, and from whatever political party they come from, to actually live up to the moral obligation that we need to correct this injustice. And I believe passionately in this, because I've met the campaigners, and John in particular, and Phil, on several occasions and I just cannot see a logical argument that can be put back to them when you see the points that they make. And it's not right that people are having their pension eaten into because they do not have inflation protection built into the compensation package that was put in place. Inflation is a brutal enemy of retirement. Once you move on to that very fixed income of the pension that you have and you physically, obviously are in your—many people stay very active in later life, but it is a fact that you're not doing the same amount of work or having the same opportunities as when you were 20, 30 or 40, and your earning potential is constrained, and you're on that fixed income.

And so there is an obligation, I believe, for the UK Government to reopen this. And I know it's a Conservative Government up there today. It was a Conservative/Lib Dem Government before that, and it was a Labour Government before that. And I accept that in the early to mid 2000s, various remedies were put in place, but those remedies have come up short and have come up short in a big way, and it cannot be right that, because a period of time has passed, people in positions of influence and power believe that that time will allow this to be brushed under the carpet and washed away. It will not be allowed to be brushed away and it will not be allowed to be washed away, because, as I've said, the individuals concerned by this injustice did what was right and, as a society, we need to do what's right by them by giving back their pensions and that security that is required in later life.

We knew that these things were happening in the 1990s and the 1980s. We only need to look at what happened with the Robert Maxwell pension scandal that was going on at Mirror Group Newspapers. This wasn't something that was unknown, and at the time regulators and politicians didn't step in and correct it. Well, we now know where those anomalies existed. Safeguards have been built into the system, but those caught by the inadequacies of the previous system shouldn't be penalised in their retirement. And I wholeheartedly endorse the sentiments on the order paper today of this motion, and I very much look forward to continuing to campaign with the campaigners to make sure that we give them justice, that we give them their pension back—pensions that they paid into. It is their money, and they deserve it, and we will not allow the passage of time to allow this injustice just to fall away. And so I welcome working across parties in this Chamber to make sure that their voices are not forgotten, and I will work with colleagues, wherever they sit, to make sure that we get the changes to the scheme that are required.

I want to speak in support of the Allied Steel and Wire workers, because they have a very just case. They are entitled to justice, and the campaign that they've been running is also one that reflects anomalies in the whole pension industry, going back to the early 1980s. And I go back to the 1980s—I mean, thank God at least then you at least had one baseline, which was the pensions directive from the European Union, and, of course, some of these protections we may actually lose in the future. I had a passing involvement as a trade union lawyer in, of course, the legal action on behalf of a community that went to the European Court, which was partly successful in the sense that the court recognised that the UK Government was in breach of its obligations but, of course, didn't impose a requirement for a system of compensation of 100 per cent, and that was the failure, and that was what subsequent regulation was meant to correct.

We need to go back also to the fact that this whole area of deregulation of the pension industry was a specific campaign by the insurance industry and an insurance industry that continues to have far too much and far too overbearing control and involvement in Government policies and particular current policies. And we have to remember also that it was the 1986 Act, under Margaret Thatcher, that resulted in that deregulation, and that deregulation—we need to think very carefully about what it actually did. It allowed companies to opt out of the obligation to provide occupational pensions. It allowed companies to take money out of surpluses of pensions, and it failed to provide for the risks that would arise in respect of companies becoming insolvent. And the reason those risks were disregarded was because it was an insurance industry that had the Government in its pocket. And we have to look, for example, at what happened to the Mineworkers' Pension Scheme, and of course there was a campaign ongoing with that with regard to the National Union of Mineworkers. 

And what happened because of that deregulation, and because of the pit closures at the time, was miners were being told, 'There you are, you can take your pension funds out, you can now transfer them'—from what is probably one of the world's most successful pension funds—'and put them in private pension funds.' And this is the way the industry worked. Insurance representatives went round the individual miners and they said, 'Oh, no, no, put your money into this fund, it'll be much, much better', but what they didn't tell the miner was that, for the first five years, they'd be paying money to the actual financial services people. And then, after five years, when they would start accumulating some benefit, someone would come along and say, 'Oh, so-and-so has gone now, I think we need to review', and then they'd do the same thing again. So, the miners were being continually robbed. And there were many other groups of workers who were in that same position. And, in fact, there was an assessment done by professional pension advisers—these are the professional advisers—69 per cent of them basically said that one of the consequences of Margaret Thatcher's deregulation was that she not only failed to see the effect of her regulations on pension schemes, but how much at risk members of these schemes would be in the event of the firms going into liquidation, and that is exactly what happened.

Now, various measures were put in place to try and assist since then, but what is very clear is we have a quagmire of regulations, and we now have whole groups of people where a surplus is being taken out of pensions when it suits either the employer, the Government, or a particular industry, and then, when there are subsequent gaps in there, it is the workers, the people who pay in their pensions over all those many years, who then actually suffer. So, we actually have—. We have the Allied Steel and Wire workers, many of whom are now massively reduced in terms of the amount of pension they are entitled to by virtue of their contributions. We have the Women Against State Pension Inequality, where Government changed regulations and suddenly you have people now having to work another five, six, seven years because of changes in terms of the pensions. And we have a Government taking billions of pounds out of the most successful workers' pension scheme in the world, the mineworkers pension scheme, and the Government refusing to negotiate over a rearrangement—not an abolition of those arrangements, but a rearrangement.

So, I support this because not only are the ASW workers right, but there is a need for a wholesale review of what has been happening with pensions, what continues to happen—the legislation coming through now restricting the rights of people to compensation in favour of the insurance industry, an insurance industry that benefits from every piece of legislation, and there is no evidence of people actually benefiting from that. And the fact that we have a Government that is in the pocket of the insurance industry I think is really very, very worrying. So, I think a royal commission on pensions, a review of pensions—something that basically sets the objective of restoring justice—but also re-establishing a proper pension scheme so that, when workers pay into those pension schemes, they're entitled to what they paid in when they get to the entitlement to a pension.

It's a pleasure to take part in this debate, although I wish this debate wasn't necessary. Some of us have been Members of this National Assembly for a very long time—since day one, in fact—as was my former Plaid Cymru colleague Owen John Thomas, who was strident in his support for the Allied Steel and Wire pension campaigners all along.

In 2003—that's 16 years ago—Plaid Cymru secured a minority party debate in Tŷ Hywel— remember; we were in the old building then—on the scandal of what had happened to pensions of Allied Steel and Wire. He said, in that debate:

'This is a perfect opportunity for this Labour Government to demonstrate its determination to give workers a fair deal. It was Tory legislation, introduced by Margaret Thatcher, that caused this mess by introducing rules that allow companies to pay off all other creditors before honouring their pension commitments when the company was wound up.'

That was a long time ago and we're still here. The Government-backed pension security scheme was a significant achievement at the time, and this legislation was apparently a progressive change by a Labour Government. It has not turned out that way, and, for years, the Blair and Brown Governments did absolutely nothing to correct the injustices faced by those in the financial assistance scheme. In fact, Baroness Ros Altmann left the Labour Party because of this issue in 2007, which she called 'a scandal'. There was only marginal improvement in the financial assistance scheme after the Government at the time was taken to court, after appealing after being found guilty by the ombudsman of misleading pensioners. The previous Labour Government's treatment of pensioners was not a strong mark of credit for them. The campaign for plain English slammed the Government at the time for its duplicity. The Conservatives came to power in 2010 with the expectation that they would correct the problems in the law when the financial assistance scheme was set up. In fact, they did nothing but offer sympathy. They appointed Baroness Altmann to be a pensions Minister, but would not provide restitution to this campaign and others in the financial assistance scheme. The worrying thing is that this current UK Government has not done anything to ensure the long-term health of private pensions. 

The Allied Steel and Wire campaigners are not demanding extras; they simply want fairness. They want their pre-1997 contributions inflation-proofed. They want those in the financial assistance scheme to be treated with the same level of fairness and protection as those in the pension protection fund, and a removal of payment caps and restitution so that they can have what was taken from them returned. As others have said—. We've had some pretty powerful contributions this afternoon: Bethan, great in opening the debate; Andrew R.T. and Mick, tremendous. There are still powerful emotions out there about this, and, as Bethan said, quoting many down the years, a pension contribution is not a bonus at the end of work, it is a deferred part of someone's salary; to take it is theft.

Plaid Cymru's been fighting for justice for these workers and others for years, as we've heard. Those were the comments of Owen John Thomas in 2003. He was still at it in 2007, and I quote—in a debate then, Owen John, still around:

'The UK Government must make changes to the Financial Assistance Scheme so that former ASW workers receive what they would have been entitled to. There is a terrible injustice particularly for those who are under 50 but may have worked up to 35 years at the steelworks, but will miss out on any financial assistance.'

That was 12 years ago. That, in itself, was five years after this issue first arose, and Allied Steel and Wire, a huge factory, only a stone's throw from here—. What can we do about it? Diolch yn fawr.

Thank you. I call on the Minister for Finance and the Trefnydd to speak to the debate—Rebecca Evans.

Thank you. I'd like to thank all Members who have brought forward this important issue to the floor of the Assembly today, and for giving that opportunity to give voice to the concerns of ASW pensioners. I will say from the outset that ASW pensioners have been subject to what is a really grave injustice. People have worked hard, they've paid in, they've planned for their futures, they did the right thing, and, through no fault of their own, they've found that they are denied what they could just reasonably have expected.

Members will be aware, of course, as we've heard, that pension matters are not devolved to Wales, but, nonetheless, we support the former ASW employees in their campaign for pension reinstatement. The Welsh Government is pleased to vote in favour of this cross-party motion today and we hope that the Assembly will send a clear and unanimous message to the UK Government.

From the outset, the Welsh Government has been consistent in its support for ASW employees prior to and following the closure of the Cardiff works in 2002. Our support included extensive activity around the closure of ASW, with a strong personal involvement by the then First Minister, including the chairing of meetings with ASW's administrators and employee representatives, plus separate meetings with the independent trustees of the ASW pension schemes to discuss issues raised by members; practical support to ASW's administrators in seeking interested parties for the Cardiff works as a going concern, leading to the successful reopening of the works by Celsa in 2003; and Welsh Ministers making numerous representations to the UK Government on behalf of all ASW pension scheme members.

Welsh Ministers first wrote to the UK Government Ministers responsible for pension matters in August 2002 to highlight the circumstances of the former ASW employees and to ask that all avenues of potential support and assistance within the pensions and employment regime be fully explored. In June 2003, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions announced a proposal for the pensions protection fund—the PPF, which we've heard of in this debate—to protect accrued pension rights for defined benefit schemes that began to wind up after April 2005. The Welsh Government subsequently pressed the UK Government to seriously consider retrospective arrangements to enable pension schemes like ASW's to be eligible for inclusion.

Working closely with the independent trustees of the ASW pension schemes and the democratically elected representatives of the former ASW workforce, the Welsh Government continued to support the case for the pension scheme members through correspondence and meetings with UK Government Ministers responsible for pension matters.

Welsh Ministers also met with former ASW employees to hear their concerns first hand. The Welsh Government welcomed the May 2004 announcement by the pensions Secretary of an amendment to the Pensions Bill to provide for the financial assistance scheme, the FAS. The FAS was intended to provide assistance to members of pension schemes where the employer became insolvent before the establishment of the PPF. 

The Welsh Government also welcomed the inclusion of the ASW pension scheme into the FAS in October 2005. However, it became apparent that the financial assistance scheme would benefit only a very small percentage of ASW pension scheme members. At the time, the scheme was restricted to offering assistance to qualifying members within three years of their scheme's normal retirement age. They would receive top-ups to around 80 per cent of their expected pension, paid from the age of 65 regardless of scheme retirement age, and this was subject to a cap of £12,000. The Welsh Government pressed the UK Government for improvements to the FAS, including provision for those who were more than three years from retirement age, of which there were many within the ASW scheme. 

There were also calls to reassess the level of funding for the FAS. Extensions to the financial assistance scheme were announced by the UK Government in 2006 and 2007. The most notable was the December 2007 announcement that all FAS members would receive 90 per cent of their accrued pension at the date of commencement of wind-up, subject to a cap, which at the time was £26,000, and, as of April 2018, is now £35,256. Assistance would also be paid from the scheme's normal retirement age, subject to a lower age limit of 60.

I think what all this shows is that sustained lobbying over the long term by ASW employees and others has led to incremental improvements, which is why we will not give up and we will not stop making the case. And I would like to recognise—.

I'm grateful to the Minister for taking an intervention. I might be reading this wrong, but I think this motion will pass with unanimous support this afternoon. I appreciate these votes don't tend to get whipped—these Members' debates don't—so if the vote does pass with unanimous approval—and the Government have indicated their support—will you commit as a Minister to raise this with the Chief Secretary to the Treasury in London when you next meet her, and, in particular, the Department of Work and Pensions, from a Government point of view? Because, as you're quite rightly identifying, extensive lobbying and a continuation of the campaign has borne fruit in the past, and we can't just let this debate be a 'noted' in the minutes of the Assembly.

No, you're absolutely right, and you pre-empted my final paragraph of my speech this afternoon. But, before I do get to that point, I would like to recognise the cross-party support that there has been for this issue across the years, and recognise, for example, the letter that was signed by leaders of all four parties within the Assembly at the time in 2012, to mark what was 10 years after ASW went into administration.

So, although the position for FAS members has improved from the early days of that scheme, it is still the case that for many people, including former ASW employees, significant shortcomings do remain in relation to the support that is provided.

So, to close, on behalf of those affected, the Welsh Government does, once more, urge the UK Government to reconsider the concerns raised by financial assistance scheme members and their representatives to achieve a rightful and positive outcome. And I am pleased to give that commitment today that I will raise this matter directly with the Chief Secretary to the Treasury when we meet in early February, and I will certainly reflect all of the comments that we've had within this debate this afternoon.

Thank you. Can I now call on Mike Hedges to reply to the debate?

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. First of all, can I thank everybody for the positive way they've spoken in this debate? Normally when we have debates, some people will speak slightly off, even when they're in support, but there has been unanimity, and I think that is important. Can I also join with Bethan Sayed in congratulating the campaigners, especially John Benson, for keeping at it for so long? But can I urge Assembly colleagues—can you reply to John Benson's e-mails? He e-mails all of us fairly regularly. Not everybody replies. We're going to show support here—hopefully unanimously—but can you actually let him know that he's got that support unanimously by replying to the e-mails he sends? 

Mike, will you take an intervention?

Yes.

Just to emphasise that point, I think it is actually important that we do have a vote here this afternoon. I will be asking for a vote, actually, rather than just saying blithely, 'It's going to be unanimous.' I think the people deserve that our names are going to be next to—and we register our support fully. So, I will ask for a vote, and, if necessary, that means we'll have to say, 'We object to it just going through, but we'll have the vote', because I want everybody registered saying, 'Yes, we support the pensioners 100 per cent.'

Thank you. As Members here are aware, I represent you on the Assembly Members' pension fund, and there are people from different age groups in here who will probably know exactly how much pension they've got coming. I just ask how you would feel if what happened to the ASW pensioners happened to you. [Interruption.] I can tell you what you've got, Bethan, if you'd want me to at another stage. [Laughter.]

Pensions are, effectively, deferred wages, and, as Bethan Sayed said, Allied Steel and Wire staff have not received the full value of their pensions. They've had the money taken off them. This inevitably's going to mean, for some individuals, financial hardship that they were not expecting. They knew how much they were going to get—. And can I just help people—? The nearer you get to retirement age, the more interest people take in the amount of money they've got in their pensions. People expect their pensions there as they were expected to be, and not to be recalibrated downwards. This is about justice and showing moral leadership, and it's not a large sum of money in terms of Government, and I think it's unfortunate that they're not prepared to find a relatively small sum. Perhaps we ought to say it's a war, then they'll provide plenty of money for it. 

Andrew Davies, I agree with you entirely. The shortfall has taken people's futures away from them. Each worker has had their retirement affected very badly. Some have had it made very different to what they were expecting. It's an injustice, and an injustice that needs correcting. We need to show that we support them so the right thing for them can be done. 

Mick Antoniw—again, it's a very just case. I think that's been something that's been a comment from everybody who has spoken. They're entitled to justice. This is not about asking for charity. It's not about asking for something over and above what people can expect: it's about justice, and, for me, here, if anything, it's a fight for those who are less well off and who are not getting justice.

Anomalies in the pensions industry—I think it's unfortunate we moved into the post-1979 period where greed was good and deregulation was good and allowed companies to opt out, as Mick Antoniw said, and take money out, not provide for risk, and gaps in the pension fund, when they come to being paid, are paid for by the workers who paid into that pension fund. I think that's incredibly sad for those who are involved. And, remember, if you weren't sitting in here now, it could be you. 

I think Mick Antoniw's view of a royal commission on pensions is a very good one. I don't think we're going to get one, but I think it's something we should be asking for. Dai Lloyd—Government-backed pension security scheme, which everybody thought was going to be the answer. Well, I think ASW workers have found out it wasn't, and I think that is sad, because when schemes are brought in that are expected to deal with something where people know there are anomalies, then it's very sad that they fail. And ASW workers continually—. And I'm going to keep on using this word—fairness.

And I'm glad the Minister described ASW as a 'grave injustice'. They've been denied what they expected. The Government is supporting the former ASW workers, and I'm glad they've got support from the Welsh Government. I'm very glad—and I think that Dai Lloyd's made the right decision to call it so that we can have a named vote of everybody who actually supports it, but it cannot be right that people who are getting on now in years, people who are retired in their 60s and at the end of their 70s are still worrying about the pension, and as Bethan Sayed can also tell you with the Visteon campaign, there were a lot of people who died waiting for pension justice. I think that, perhaps, one of the saddest things is that people are awaiting that justice and they never get it, and maybe a portion of it will make its way to their next of kin, but they never get the justice that they've been campaigning for and fighting for.

I think we ought to be fully behind ASW workers. We ought to say, 'We think you deserve justice, and we think the Westminster Government should provide the money', which, in terms of Government expenditure, is a relatively small amount—perhaps one less missile and we'd be able to pay it. I think that, really, we want a situation where the money is provided and people get what they deserve. So, I hope everybody here in this room will support it. 

Thank you. The proposal is to agree the motion. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Therefore, we defer voting under this item until voting time. 

Voting deferred until voting time.