CLEGG REPEATS ‘FAIR’ PMS PLEDGE

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has repeated yet again the government's pledge to find a "just and fair" solution for savers in the collapsed Presbyterian Mutual Society, the Belfast published Newsletter reported today.

Speaking at the North-South Parliamentary Conference in Newcastle, Co Down on Thursday night, he said the new government “is very mindful of the need to resolve the serious hardship faced by members of the Presbyterian Mutual Society”. He added: 

“The ministerial working group has been restored under the chairmanship of the secretary of state. And we are working intensively to find a fair and just resolution. And we know we must find it very soon.”

The day before, Secretary of State Owen Paterson said that he and David Cameron “will honour” their pre-election pledge of a “just and fair” solution for 9,500 savers in the £300m mutual.

He also slammed Gordon Brown for “completely ignoring” PMS savers by boasting that “not a single British saver has lost a penny” during the UK’s banking crisis.

But campaigners responded that the new government had thus set the standard by which it would be judged; Presbyterian leader Rev Dr Stafford Carson said the only “fair and just” outcome could therefore be one where PMS savers did not lose a penny either.

However, a range of sources told the News Letter this week that a full refund was looking unlikely.

Jeffrey Donaldson MP said it was not clear whether the Treasury will approve a pound-for-pound loan rescue package for PMS savers.

“But with the Comprehensive Spending Review fast approaching on October 20, it is essential that the Treasury gives a clear indication what assistance it will give,” he said. “Let us hope that assurances given by the prime minister recently in Parliament are now honoured.”

In February, the Treasury Select Committee said PMS savers had been innocent victims of government failures, and called for a swift remedy.

Chairman John McFall MP said: “We do not believe that, as a general rule, the taxpayer should stand behind a financial institution. However, it is clear in the case of the PMS there was a fatal regulatory gap, which no lay person could reasonably have identified.”