In the new session of parliament, which starts at the end of November, I shall introduce a bill to wind-up the MPs’ pension scheme so that it runs alongside the Government’s own promised Pension Bill. My aim is twofold. I hope MPs will vote down my bill. But, in so doing, I also hope that their resolve will be strengthened enough to amend the Government’s bill so that all those workers who have already lost all or part of their occupational pension entitlement are properly compensated.

Last December I introduced the Pensions (Winding-Up) Bill which the Government has blocked on two occasions. It is likely to do so again later this month. The bill proposed lifting pension debts higher up the pecking order of company debts, dividing the pension fund largely on the basis of contributory years, capping professional fees as well as establishing a nation-wide insurance scheme to cover future pension losses when schemes are wound-up by their employers.

Had the Government not blocked this measure it would now be on the statute book, and the detailed six month work laid down by the bill to bring the measure into operation would now have been completed. It is understandable that the Government wanted to claim the credit for reforming the law governing pension scheme closures. It could have done so, of course, by merely adopting the bill as their own, and ensured that it had time to reach the statute book in the early months of this year.

The Government must now realise that its strategy of scooping up part of this bill and putting it in its next Pension Bill has some significant down sides. Its inaction has added to the growing sense of unease, if not despair, which now surrounds pensions. That despair is being increased by the news of regular pension scheme closures. The anger over the Government’s inaction is growing.

Worst still, it is clearly in a mess over its own proposals. Ministers recite that they are only looking at proposals which would cover those tens of thousands of workers who have recently seen their pension entitlement snatched from them. The proposal I have put forward is for a levy to be imposed on the £15bn or so of unclaimed assets. But the Government holds out no definite hope.

This is where the proposal to wind up MPs’ pensions comes in. I am confident that MPs will ensure that this bill is killed. But there should be quite a bit of coverage on their manoeuvrings and votes. Many of their constituents will become well versed in how MPs have understandably acted to protect their own pension scheme.

Here is the rub. If there are not satisfactory proposals in the Pension Bill I will be tabling amendments so that those who lost their pension will be covered. A modest levy on those unclaimed assets will restore lost pension entitlement without an additional penny cost to taxpayers.

With MPs understandably voting to protect their own pensions, my hope is that most will simultaneously want to extend the same protection to their constituents who have lost out heavily. After saving their own pensions, the Government’s majority of 167 might not save it from defeat if their Pension Bill does not extend retrospectively its proposed compensatory scheme.