Pensions Bill [HL]
(13 years, 8 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
17:08 - Division on Amendment 1 - Ayes: 214 / Noes: 226 - Amendment 1 disagreed.
17:55 - Division on Amendment 3 - Ayes: 203 / Noes: 215 - Amendment 3 disagreed.
18:44 - Division on Amendment 11 - Ayes: 153 / Noes: 194 - Amendment 11 disagreed.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
Lord McKenzie of Luton
I shall speak also to the other amendments in the group. Their detail may appear a little intricate, but their effect should be clear and straightforward. The amendments provide for the retention of the existing timetable for the equalisation of state pension age of men and women at age 65, but to bring forward the increase in the state pension age to 66 for both, in stages, between 2020 and 2022. Noble Lords will be aware that the Pensions Act 1995 provides for the gradual rise of women's state pension age from 60 to 65 over a 10-year period from 2010 to 2020. Also, as part of what we might call the Turner settlement and to pay for re-linking the basic state pension to earnings, the Pensions Act 2007 provided for the SPA to increase to 66 between 2024 and 2026, and then to 67 and 68 in the subsequent two decades.
The Bill also brings forward the increase in the state pension age to 66, but it would be completed between November 2018 and April 2020. Because the increase for men cannot run ahead of women's state pension age, the Government have put themselves in a position where they have to accelerate the date for equalisation of the SPA to November 2018, thereby disturbing the settled timetable of the 1995 Act. The Government propose to move to a state pension age for women of 65 by November 2018, rather than March 2020. The acceleration for that begins in May 2016. Between November 2018 and March 2020, the state pension age will rise for both men and women to 66.
What the Government seek to do is a clear breach of the coalition agreement, which committed that the state pension age for women would not start to rise to 66 until 2020. Had it been honoured, we could have reached a consensus on the way forward. Our amendments accept an acceleration of the move to a state pension age of 66, bringing it forward four years from the current timetable, but because that does not need to start until 2020, when men and women will each have a state pension age of 65, there is no need to change and no justification for changing the 1995 provisions.
The Government’s proposals affect nearly 5 million people, about 2.6 million of them women. Of those 2.6 million, 1.5 million women will have to wait a year longer for their pension, of which 500,000 will have to wait more than a year, including 300,000 for more than 18 months and 33,000 for exactly two years. Those first affected will have just five years’ notice. Our amendments would affect 1.2 million fewer people; they would affect approximately equal numbers of men and women; and no one would have to wait more than an extra year for their pension. There would be a minimum of nine years’ notice for all those whose state pension age will change.
Before expanding on our reasons for that proposition, let me reiterate, as I said in Committee, that we do not dispute the updated information concerning life expectancy and the need to change the status quo. We further recognise that the current timetable for increasing the state pension age to 67 and 68 is unlikely to survive. Whether the Chancellor's wish for a more automatic process to update that will achieve a consensus will depend on what view is taken of such matters as fair notice periods and health inequalities.
It is also accepted that our amendment would achieve only two-thirds of the savings that the Government hope to secure by drawing the line where they have. Our proposition is the same as option 2 in the impact assessment. We will hear from the Government, as we did in Committee, that we cannot forgo the difference of some £11 billion in DWP savings, but let us put this in context. This is a net present value, not an annual figure. The DWP savings forgone on our proposition are spread over about five years and do not exceed £1 billion until 2018-19, with the differential between the two propositions disappearing in 2022-23. These are not small sums, but need to be seen in the context of a GDP which might then be some £2 trillion with annual spending on pensions and benefits of £100 billion a year. The timing of the savings is outside the Government’s deficit reduction plan. The savings are all outside this Parliament and significantly outside the one that follows.
One cannot ignore the medium or long term, particularly on pensions, but intergenerational judgments also involve assessing who is to bear the pain now. Savings to the Government and future taxpayers are pensions forgone by the 5 million individuals, the majority of them women, who are hit by these proposals. If intergenerational issues are to be judged on the basis of the number of years in receipt of state pension or the proportion of adult life spent in receipt of state pension, the impact assessment shows little difference between the Government’s position and our amendment.
We contend that any changes to state pension age have to be reasonable and fair and should not disadvantage any group disproportionately. The Government’s proposals fail this test. Women’s pension age is rising by up to two years; no man will see more than a one-year rise. Some women are being given six years’ notice of a two-year change; men are being given seven years’ notice of a one-year increase. Forty per cent of women in the age group affected by these proposals have no private pension wealth. Many who were part-time workers were excluded from occupational pension schemes until the 1990s. Women’s pension assets are only one-tenth of those of men. Women are more likely to take on caring responsibilities and to have reduced their hours of work or left the labour market on the expectation of a pension at a fixed date. Just on these issues, it is difficult to see that they have not been disproportionately disadvantaged by the Bill.
Of course, it is not possible to redress all the historic disadvantages women have endured in pension provision, but reasonable notice periods for changes to the state pension age is clearly one way of allowing maximum time to adjust. The 1995 Act gave 15 years’ notice. The 2007 Act gave 17 years’ notice. This Bill gives five years’ notice. What is reasonable notice can be judged in part by looking at attachment to the labour market. Analysis shows that women tend to leave the labour market earlier than men. In 2010, 65 per cent of women aged 55 to 59 were still economically active, but by age 60 to 64 this declined to 34 per cent. If individuals are to be able to respond to changes to their economic circumstances caused by a deferral of their pension, they need to know before they make irrevocable decisions about their employment. This assumes that individuals are in a position to mitigate their pension loss by continuing in or rejoining the labour market. We know this is more difficult for some than for others. The impact assessment suggests that ethnic minority groups in particular will be adversely affected. Analysis shows that notice for men should be at least five years and, ideally, 10 years, and for women it should clearly not be less. It will be noted that even our amendment offers only nine years, which is just on the cusp of what should be acceptable.
The Government are right to address the consequences of increasing life expectancy. The much-lauded triple lock has to be paid for, but the Government have gone about it in the wrong way and will cause great unfairness, particularly to women. This group of amendments offers a fairer alternative. I beg to move.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
My Lords, first, I apologise to the House that due to a previous commitment I was not present to support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, in Committee.
As other noble Lords have said, there are a number of changes which we welcome, not least that auto-enrolment into occupational pensions will in future help more people to save for retirement. However, as we all know, both from individual letters we have received and from organisations such as Age UK, Saga, the TUC and others, considerable numbers of women are very concerned. A total of some 2.6 million women are affected by all this, and they are very concerned at the Government’s proposed acceleration of the state retirement age. To be fair, they had certainly not expected such a step.
I am sure it will not surprise the House to learn that I want to concentrate on the adverse effect that some of the Bill’s proposals will have on women, particularly on those turning 57 in March and April this year who will now have to wait until they reach 66 to receive the state pension they have contributed to during their working lives. They have had less than eight years’ notice of an additional two years without that state pension. Equally, we need, as the noble Lord has already said, to face two realities: first, that our parlous economic situation will inevitably reduce everybody’s quality of life, and secondly, the realisation that our increasing longevity means that all of us will in future have to work longer to earn a decent state retirement pension. However, we shall as well be seeing—I hope, as finance improves—far more effective equal opportunity practices available at all workplace levels for both sexes, which should mean that men as well as women can genuinely share rather more of the family responsibilities. That in particular is why I want to support the noble Lord’s amendments, for it seems to me that they have indeed faced these realities. On economic as well as longevity grounds, they do not ask for the full commitment which the coalition Government’s agreement promised to give to women to be fully honoured, but merely for a slight increase in what the Government themselves propose. For that reason, I really hope that when the Minister replies he will feel able to accept that compromise.
I have to admit that my own preference would be for the commitment to be fully honoured. In my early days as deputy chairman of the Equal Opportunities Commission in the 1970s, pensions were not even perceived as pay. I am glad to say that that situation was very soon seen to be untenable.
I return to what is proposed. A total of some 2.6 million women are affected. Of those, 33,000 women born in the 1953-54 period will see their state pension age increased by at least 18 months. It is estimated that those women will lose around £10,000. We need to remember, too, that when these women were first in the workforce, there were far fewer and far less well-paid jobs available to them than there are in today’s world, especially when they needed to work part-time or flexibly when children or other family members needed care. Two different illustrative figures bring this home very starkly. Women retiring in 2009-10 had on average a state pension of £92 compared with the average male state pension of £124. For those who were lucky enough to be involved in private pensions, an average man’s private occupational savings when aged 56 were £53,000 or nearby, which is no less than six times higher than the woman’s average total of £9,000.
When we consider the just and fair thing to do in this situation, we all need to accept who bore the responsibility for bringing up the generation of healthy, well adjusted young people who are today those responsible for paying our state pension entitlement. We also have to remember that none of the savings that the Government claim to be making will be made during this period of major financial crisis. So why victimise this already exceedingly vulnerable group of women—the poorer they are, the more they will suffer—when no actual money will be saved during this Parliament and not least when, realistically, the likelihood of women in this age group finding or keeping jobs is minimal?
If you add to all that the fact that, in our move towards a unisex retirement age—it is likely to be further increased as our longevity increases—we are asking women to increase their current earlier retirement age by a huge leap of six years compared to the one year expected of men, which was lower than that of men to compensate for the handicap of women in the workplace as a result of their family responsibilities, frankly, we should all be ashamed of doing anything less than what is proposed in these amendments.
Lord Boswell of Aynho
My Lords, perhaps I may respond briefly to this amendment, having spoken on these matters in Committee. It provides a convenient opportunity to differentiate comments that I might make on this amendment from those that I might make on a subsequent amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, on the impact on women. I have felt on reflection since I considered the exchanges in Committee that there is an increasing, and I think more intensely felt, acceptance on my part that we have to get on with this and therefore, in order to raise money, accelerate the equalisation of the state pension age. Because of the doctrines that we have on equal treatment, it is only at that point that we are able to effect an increase in the overall unisex state retirement age towards 66 and perhaps at a later stage further in the way that the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, reasonably accepted.
We know that we have to get on with this and that we have to wrestle with longevity, which has already knocked sideways the assessments under the Pensions Act 2007. While I am aware that we are not discussing private pensions in this part of the Bill, I happened to see some figures the other day on the universities superannuation scheme that totally struck me. They suggested that since 1973 the average pension age has gone up by 13 years. We are not dealing with a static situation; we are dealing with a rapidly exploding situation in people’s state and, where they have them, private pension entitlements on account of longevity.
Therefore, again as the noble Lord very reasonably said, this raises some interesting and rather intense issues about intergenerational transfers. Either we can redistribute this—we might both perhaps wish to return to that in a later group—or we have to consider pushing some of the burden on to today’s working population and taxpayers. It is perfectly true that none of these amendments—even on the Government’s proposed timescale towards equalisation, which I accept is rather rapid—cuts into the present deficit reduction programme, the present Parliament or the immediate outcome of dealing with the crisis.
Nevertheless, we have this inexorable march forward. If we do not do something about it now, particularly if we are anxious to give the maximum possible notice, it will not be possible to tackle the pensions problem before it overwhelms us. The only people who could end up paying for this are our children and our grandchildren through their taxes because of the pay-as-you-go system. We have to grasp the nettle now.
I do know—I was rather appalled at the estimates of costs in Committee—that the noble Lord’s amendment would cost some £10 billion a year. It is a small proportion of the savings which the Government have set out in their indication of the savings. The noble Lord is shaking his head.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, but it is not £10 billion a year; it is a net present value figure spread over five or six years.
Lord Boswell of Aynho
The noble Lord is entirely right to correct me. I had added the words “per annum”, which are not in the calculations. However, it is still a very substantial sum, and I do not think that Governments at the present juncture can forgo that. To put it another way, they would have to find an alternative means of financing even proposals that I put forward in Committee, which we may touch on later. Those were alleged to be likely to cost £7 billion, which, frankly, is rather more than I had anticipated or indeed would be sustainable. We are into a difficult calculation, but we cannot, in the circumstances of longevity, responsibly countenance the noble Lord’s amendment as it is at the moment. However, if for some reason the figures are not as pessimistic as we thought, I would very much like to hear my noble friend’s response when the time comes.
The Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds
My Lords, I have put my name to these amendments because I want to talk about the speed with which the goalposts are being moved and the unfairness between individuals that that represents. I speak as the Bishop who has had major responsibility for changes to the Church of England clergy pensions scheme and the reduction in benefits that is involved in that. I have had to present those to the General Synod and I bear some of the scars for doing so. I am under no illusions as to the difficulty of this task for the Government.
I fully accept the arguments for equalisations and those based on longevity to which the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, has just been speaking. Change is needed, but I cannot accept that this speed of change is necessary. From my own experience, from my clergy postbag, and from my postbag about the Bill, I know that the two things that potential pensioners most resent are changes to their expectations with comparatively little notice and perceived unfairness. These proposals fail under both those headings, and the amendments put forward by the noble Lord do much to mitigate that unfairness and failure.
Individuals find changes in pension planning extremely complex and difficult to implement on a personal level. Many of the women who are affected here have taken time out to care for elderly parents, having worked long enough to qualify for the full pension. They have done that deliberately and they have responsibly assessed the way in which they are approaching retirement. Now they are simply being told, with only five to seven years’ notice, that they will have to cope on existing resources for one or two more years than they had anticipated—and than they had been told to anticipate as recently as the last changes in 2007. That is actually draconian for a group of individuals, notably the women, mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, who were born in that month of March to April 1954. They face an immediate two-year increase in their state retirement age. Some 33,000 women are unfortunate enough to have been born in a particular month. It is not a tiny number, although it may be a small proportion of those who in one way or another will see a reduction in their pension expectation through the timetable of the Bill. We are often exhorted to plan carefully for retirement. It is understandable that people see little point in doing so if, for some, the goalposts are then moved to the other end of the pitch. This may not technically be retrospective legislation, but in practice that is exactly what it is for a significant number of women.
It causes changes to expectations at short notice and, secondly, unfairness. The proposals as they stand create a situation in which a woman born in 1950 obtained her pension in 2010 whereas her sister, born in 1954 and four years younger, has to wait until 2020 for hers—a six-year increase in the pension age, the best part of a decade between the times these sisters receive their pensions. When we look at the figures, it is easy to see the need for change, but we must also take account of the unfairness that that creates between neighbours, family groups and work colleagues, and the tension and pressure on friendships and relationships. That is why we need to think again on the timetable. The changes in the Bill bring no additional savings until 2016. The savings do not contribute to tackling the present economic crisis. It is a matter of justice for a significant number of women that we change that timetable today.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, I, like others, very much support these amendments. I have here the coalition programme for government, drawn up 10 months ago. On page 26, it makes seven promises on pensions relating to the earnings link, the Hutton review, a review on early access and so on. I agree with almost all of them and the coalition Government are honouring almost all of them—which is great—except for one. The coalition programme states:
“We will phase out the default retirement age and hold a review to set the date at which the state pension age starts to rise to 66, although it will not be sooner than 2016 for men and 2020 for women”.
I agree with the coalition programme on that too: it is a clear and reasonable promise that was made just 10 months ago. We need to equalise, in a steady way, and that coalition commitment would have delivered that. Now in this Bill, just a few months later, that key coalition agreement promise—the one that most directly affects women, and poorer women at that—has been torn up and junked.
Whereas women before 2016 are seeing their pension age rise gradually, in steps of one year for every two years, suddenly from 2016 the rate at which their pension age is deferred extends, so that they have to wait three years instead of two and four years instead of three. From then on, half a million women will have to wait more than one year for their pension, 300,000 for more than a year and a half and 33,000—as the right reverend Prelate emphasised—for two years. It means that Susan, born in March 1953, will reach pension age at 63 in 2016. Her cousin Barbara, born a year later in March 1954, will reach pension age in March 2020, when she will be 66—one year younger, and she waits a further four years for her pension. Is that fair? Of course not. Is it necessary? The Government ran two arguments in their impact analysis and in Committee: first, given the deficit, that we need to find savings even from the pensions of the poorest women to sustain fiscal futures; and secondly, given increasing life expectancy, that we need to raise the pension age faster than anticipated.
Neither of these arguments, in my view, is valid. Given the deficit and the need to find savings—as has been mentioned by my noble friend Lord McKenzie and others today—and given that this acceleration starts in only 2016, we are already beyond the deficit period. Anticipated savings of £30 billion—virtually all from women—are not part of the four-year plan. Is it necessary, however, for longer-term fiscal stability? In the longer term, yes; it is the speed that we are objecting to and the unfairness for women dependent on the month in which they are born as to whether they get a reasonable or a very bad deal from the state. It is a lottery, my Lords. The Government, unlike the markets, should not engage in lotteries with people’s pensions.
Lord Flight
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, make a persuasive case, but I would refer to it as a persuasive case in an ideal world. First, no alternative way of saving the present value sum of £10 billion has been offered. Secondly, the real priority is to move to a much better state pension at 70—as many noble Lords have commented, entailing an acceleration in the increase of the retirement age. I was interested, turning on the radio in my car the other day, to hear various people in their mid-50s being interviewed who all said that they expected to work until 70 as a matter of course. Perhaps people are somewhat ahead of the two legislatures.
I cannot deny that there is an apparent unfairness here but, without giving offence, I hope, I point out that my wife was one of the lucky ones in getting a state pension at 60—she was just on the cusp, whereas a lot of her friends had to wait a lot longer—but I do not get one until 65 although I am likely to live two and half years less than her. Historically there has been enormous unfairness in the provision of state pensions regarding men and women. Men, who lived shorter, had to wait longer for their pensions. That is going to be ended as pensions are brought into line and made the same for both sexes, but I do not think that I ever heard people complaining on behalf of men that they were getting an unfair deal in relation to women.
One has to accept the idealistic fairness of the case, but £10 billion has to be raised and the priority for all of us is to move towards a much better pension for all at 70. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, pointed out, for the many women who will continue to work, whether to 65, 70 or 75, this will not have a huge effect; it will have a bigger effect on those women not in a position to do so. It is potentially better to deal with that problem by means of the welfare reforms that are going through than to delay the bringing together—or, in fact, the acceleration—of the retirement ages for men and women.
Baroness Bakewell
My Lords, I support the idea that these changes to the pension age are going too fast. There was a successful film recently called “Made in Dagenham”, which helped to bring home to a new generation of women how much the gender equality gap had changed. It pointed up the distance that women have come today from what they called the bad old days of discrimination. Look at us today, the film said; we enjoy much greater equality, and now we have the law on our side to back us up. Barbara Castle featured in the film, brilliantly played, and she was feisty in her defence of equality for women. The film assumed that the audience who saw it would feel that the story was complete and that equality was an accepted part of our society.
Therefore, it is sad to see a necessary piece of legislation going through that harps on the idea that women will just have to put up with this new piece of discrimination. Half the population of this country are highly tuned to notice what happens to women and the disadvantages that are placed on their lives. Women have more complicated lives than men, as we know; they take time out to have children, to nurse older people and to create stable households—an ideal that I know the Government hold precious. Women therefore need consideration in the pattern of their lives that the amendment seeks to improve.
Bringing in this change to the pension age is extremely important; it is evident that we are an ageing population and we will all of us have to work longer. It is the method by which we bring that about that calls for nuance. Nobody is challenging the fact that we are getting older. Nobody is challenging the fact that, as the noble Lord said, men have been disadvantaged. We do not want them to be disadvantaged; we want people to be treated fairly and equally, and we want gender-free legislation.
This legislation is not gender-free. It cannot be said too often. My colleagues on these Benches have said so already. Listen to the numbers: one-third of a million women will see their state pension age rise by 18 months. Thirty-three thousand will see it increase by two years. It is not just those women who are affected by this but their children, families, neighbours and other women. Women are very aware of legislation that goes against them. It is unfair—we can see that it is. Women are being penalised out of the blue because the Government are rushing forward with pension proposals that need slower and fairer introduction.
One of the Government’s flagship aspirations is to get people to show a greater personal responsibility. That is an excellent thing but how can people do that—how can they plan for their old age, which will take a lot of complicated financial arranging as people live far longer—in so short a time? Indeed, as people age and begin to look forward to their retirement, they formulate attitudes towards it that are hard to change. They see it coming towards them; they make allowances for the time it will give them to look after their own, by now very aged, parents. They may feel they deserve to see a reward coming towards them for a life of hardship and trouble. I know people feel this because they write to me, as they do to my fellow Peers. They complain in their letters that it is an outrage.
This is not a matter of discrimination that will go on in the way that the film showed discrimination operating in the 1960s and 1970s and earlier. We know that this is a transition and one that is important. Of course we have to move to a fairer system. We will all work to 70 and things will eventually come right. However, is it legitimate to see them coming right at the expense of a group of poor and disadvantaged women, who somehow have to be sacrificed on the altar of this speedy operation? In this case there is an alternative.
Baroness Hollins
My Lords, I, too, am concerned about what the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, described as disproportionate disadvantage. I am concerned about women, the great carers in our society—the people who care about the members of their family who are perhaps more vulnerable or dependent and need extra support. They are the people who, because they care so much, are willing to give up their time and perhaps work part-time. I belonged for a period to the Standing Commission on Carers. A survey was reported to the standing commission in its first year which found that the vast majority of family carers are indeed women. It found that when women care, they are more likely to work part-time or give up their occupation, and that men who cared did so extremely well but for fewer hours. Caring was much less likely to impact on their employment hours.
This change is being made too quickly and comes too soon. I acknowledge that, on the face of it, women live longer and that it is perhaps anomalous that their current pension age is lower. Yesterday I met the carers’ forum at the Royal College of Psychiatrists. It was made up of 12 people who represent carers of sons, daughters, partners and elderly parents with different mental health conditions. Some cared for somebody in their family with a learning disability or autism. The majority of them were women. I asked them how this change, and the speed of this change, would affect people in their position. They represent carers of people with mental health conditions, and they made some very important points quite forcibly.
They said that pension equality is fine, but that perhaps it should come into effect when society is more equal—when women start getting equal pay and occupational pensions, and particularly when men begin to share the caring burden more equally. They support the right of carers to work; they recognise the role of work as respite. They wanted me to stress the importance of not underestimating the effect on carers of a rapid change in their pensionable age when they might have made decisions about caring and occupation in anticipation of an earlier pension age. They talked about the need for health and strength to be an effective carer and the insidious nature of caring—the way in which it can lead to so much tiredness and often depression. They said: “Adrenalin keeps us going when we are caring. But sometimes when our caring responsibilities end, that is the moment when we ourselves begin to experience health problems which we have been storing up during those caring years”.
These are people who have saved the country huge amounts of money through giving up their own occupation and their own time to care and support more vulnerable members of their families. I appreciate that, in a good carers strategy, it might well be that welfare reform will attend to carers’ needs. What they would have liked as carers is a flexible pension that took account of individual need rather than assuming the same age was right for everybody. However, I support these amendments. The speed of change is too rapid particularly for this very vulnerable group, who represent a significant number of people if it is true that as many as a sixth of this particular age group are at the moment affected or carers, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, suggested.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon
My Lords, I have not intervened in these debates so far, and I hope that I will be forgiven for doing so now. I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, will welcome what I am going to say, but he will be pleased to know that I will support his amendments. So far I have left things to people who are more expert than I am in these matters, but today I want to support these amendments. It is quite intolerable that women should be required to wait longer for a proper pension provision which was, as we have heard, promised to them in the coalition agreement.
We have heard quite a lot this afternoon about the cost. It is £10 billion apparently. It seems that the Government will find that difficult to find. However, I notice that, over the weekend, our Prime Minster committed the Government and the British taxpayer to a £7 billion bailout of Portugal. When money can be found for one purpose, it seems to be there, but when it needs to be found for another good purpose, it is not there. Not so long ago, we committed this country to loaning the Irish Republic £3 billion to help to deal with its economic circumstances. This is all very well if you have the money to do it. However, according to the Government, we have not got the money to honour the promise that was made to the women of this country. That is intolerable. However, there is more to it than that. I also noticed yesterday that the amount of our contribution to the European Union in net terms has moved up from £8.3 billion to £9.3 billion. That is not just for one year; that extra £1 billion will have to be paid from now on, so by 2018 we will have paid an extra £8 billion. We could almost meet this cost from the additional money that we have to pay to the European Union budget. However, that money will be found; it will have to be found, so why on earth cannot we find money for our own women in this country?
There is another point. The coalition agreement stated that the overseas aid budget should rise by £3.5 billion—I believe by 2012. That, too, will be an ongoing commitment, year in and year out. A lot of money is being spent to relieve other people but we are not prepared to do our own women justice. I know that I might be criticised for my remarks about overseas aid. I am a great supporter of overseas aid and believe that this country has made extremely good provision in that regard. However, it has to be shown to provide value for money. Noble Lords will have noted that a much more significant figure than myself—the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson—has raised this very point. He has said, and I agree with him, that the money which is paid in overseas aid must be subject to proper control, be seen to be value for money and should not go to the leaders of the relevant countries but to the people of those countries. Those words should be taken seriously.
I certainly support these amendments. In so doing, I believe that I am supporting the women of this country. The argument that we do not have the money is a spurious one, as it appears that we have plenty of money to give to other people outside this country.
Lord German
My Lords, before I say a word or two about this particular group of amendments, I want to say a few words about the opposition to these proposals as a whole and the manner in which it has been expressed. I refer to the opposition outside this Chamber, not within it. It is interesting to note the advocacy that has reached our ears from a huge number of organisations that have put a lot of effort into researching and tackling the issues before us. In any normal protest, you hear two questions: “What do you want and when do you want it?”. I suspect that the answer to the second question, which is always “now”, cannot be applied to pensions. This is the issue with which many of us are having to wrestle. How do you plan for the future? How do you anticipate the future? How do you look at the future? How do you predict what will happen in the years to come? The standard answer is, “We would not be starting from here”. However, pensions reform in this country has been very slow in coming. Where it has happened, people have realised that they should have done it a lot earlier, so there will always be change and acceleration and the interests of a future generation will always have to be taken into account. It is that future generation that we have to bear in mind in this group of amendments. As the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, said, we are talking about intergenerational issues, and that is the issue that we will have to face—a smaller number of younger people having to pay for a larger number of older people. The question cannot be avoided; we have to answer it.
In Committee there were amendments to this section of the Bill not only from the Conservative Benches, but from the Labour Benches and from us, all of which were differently phrased, but all of which sought to look at some very specific issues. It would be nice to have gender-free pensions language, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, said. We cannot do that until such time as we have equality in the pension age. We have to arrive at that point before we can have gender-free language. It would be very nice for men to be able to contribute, and perhaps there may be a way for men to contribute in the longer term, which is something that we ought to be saying at this stage for the future. We may be able to look at those issues, and the Minister may be able to suggest some avenues.
Two specific issues were raised in Committee. It is the most vulnerable who are, of course, the least vocal in our society. Perhaps that is one reason why we have had not vocal protest but advocacy protest about some of these measures. It is the most vulnerable in our society who are going to be affected—those with no private pension savings, no partner’s pension to rely on, and for whom the personal state pension is the key. They are about 14 per cent of the women in the whole cohort and this 14 per cent of women shows why it is so important to have a good single-tier pension.
I welcome the announcement in the Budget of a £140 basic state pension because that is a huge rise. Can the Minister give us some more flesh on the bones of what the Chancellor said about this? He is smiling because this is an issue that I have constantly raised with him—that the replacement should be a basic provision for all which is both gender-free and acceptable to everyone: everyone can receive it. I hope that this big increase in the basic state pension will deal with some of the issues about the most vulnerable.
Secondly, there was the issue of inequity for the group of people who were born in 1953, 1954 or 1955. These are the people for whom there will be inequitable treatment compared with other women in their cohort. We have already heard about the sister; the right reverend Prelate gave the most extreme example earlier. We need to hear from the Minister that there is a solution for these people. Given the level of interest in this matter, how will he acknowledge and address this inequity? I hope that he will acknowledge it in his response to this group and a subsequent group of amendments.
A variety of solutions were put forward in Committee, some of which we will be debating and reflecting on today, but at this stage we must reflect the fact that this set of amendments will put more taxation on our children and those who follow us. They will have to pay for that intergenerational change and it is always going to be the same as this progresses. We have to make a judgment as to what is the right amount that our children should have to pay to make this easier.
Finally, if you are trying to predict at the moment what your pension might be and when your pension age might come and you go on to the Government’s website to find out, you will still find the existing proposals. It would be worth having the website reflect more strongly that changes are proposed and give some indication of what those changes might be, so that people who will be thinking about these matters during the course of the Bill will be able to see the changes that affect them. We need transparency and I hope that the Minister will address that.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Freud)
My Lords, this set of amendments puts forward the first of two alternative routes to achieving a combined retirement age at 66. We shall discuss the second route in the next group of amendments, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, and the noble Baroness for giving us a further opportunity to debate the issues that the amendments in this group raise. Let me start by saying that we are not insensitive to the impact that our timetable will have on the women who will face a much steeper increase in their state pension age than they were expecting. We also appreciate that we are asking them to make this adjustment with less notice than we would provide in an ideal world. However, for reasons that I shall explain, we are not in an ideal world, as my noble friend Lord Flight has just said. We remain of the view that, although this is a genuinely difficult decision, it is still the right one.
Baroness Browning
When my noble friend explains his intentions to the House, will he include an explanation of what the practical implications would be of helping those women most affected by shifting the burden on to the wider pensioner population?
Lord Freud
Yes, I will try to address that now. If we were to look for funding by asking men and women, after their pension ages were combined at age 66, to go on for a little later than 66, the sums of the adjustment—although it is not easy to do them—would be roughly £330 million a year per month. It would depend on how many years you have. I will write to my noble friend and try to spell out the figures on making that adjustment.
Let me revert to the amendment, which is fundamentally the same proposition that the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, made in Committee. I shall recapitulate why—notwithstanding the many concerns that we heard today and in Committee—we believe that we are taking the right course of action. It is common ground all around the House that we simply cannot go on ignoring the increases in life expectancy and the pressure that this puts on the state pension system now and in the future. Indeed, these amendments acknowledge that we need to move faster than the timetable that was set earlier. The impact of the upward revision in the life-expectancy projections is an extra £6.5 billion in state pension spending over the lifetime of just that cohort retiring in 2010.
As many noble Lords have pointed out, the amendment would cost the public purse upwards of £10 billion that would need to be found elsewhere. When the coalition Government came into power, we had not only to combat the huge financial debt the UK was in at that time, but put the country on a sound financial footing for the future.
I remind noble Lords that the financing of old age as a whole is the single biggest structural, long-term economic issue facing this country. We need to address the long-term costs of our pension system and ensure that we can deal with any wider economic problems that may appear on the horizon—a point made by my noble friends Lord Boswell and Lord German.
We expect public debt to be on a declining path by 2015-16, but it will still be well above pre-crisis levels. By the end of this Parliament, we will still have a national debt of £1.3 trillion. Waiting until 2020 to start moving to retirement at 66 would reduce the savings that we are looking for by a third—£10 billion off a total of £30 billion. That is the equivalent of reducing the education budget by 10 per cent over the spending review period, or one year’s capital budget for health. We have not yet heard a plausible alternative that would deliver those savings—with apologies, perhaps, to the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart. This is not an insignificant amount of money that we can easily pass up.
We believe it is right that those people who will benefit from recent increases in life expectancy make a contribution to the additional cost that comes from those longevity improvements. Women, no less than men, have benefited from increases in life expectancy. In three generations, projected average life expectancy at age 65 has risen by nine years for women. At the same time, women’s basic state pension outcomes have been rapidly catching up with those of men and continue to improve. In 2006, only 30 per cent of women retired on a full basic state pension. In 2010-11, that figure has increased to around 75 per cent. The projection is for it to reach 90 per cent by 2018, which is a big change-around in the support that older and retired women will get.
On the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, we have also taken action to ensure that the state continues to provide a decent income for people when they retire, with the state pension supported by the triple lock and key support elements for pensioners protected, such as free TV licences, cold-weather payments maintained at £25 and so on.
As the Chancellor has now officially announced, we will be consulting shortly on proposals for a simpler state pension, which will boost state pension outcomes further for the groups which are traditionally disadvantaged in the current system by low earnings and by interruptions, which is a point that several noble Lords have made. I have been challenged by my noble friend Lord German to talk more about the single tier. Every time we meet, I think there is more discussion on it than on anything else. A Green Paper is due shortly that contains two proposals. There is a proposal for a single-tier system, which will be looked at alongside the alternative option of accelerating the currently legislated changes to the current system—so-called flat rating.
The single-tier system would be around £140 a week and its main benefit would be much greater simplicity for individuals, which would give them a much clearer idea of how to plan ahead. It is also cost-neutral, a factor that is particularly valuable in the current climate, as I have pointed out. However, this is a complicated thing to do, and it is important that the reforms fit in with the programme of automatic enrolment and we will actively consult on the proposals. I take to heart the point about information made by my noble friend Lord German. I will take that back to the department and see how much clarity I can get.
Women retiring at 66 in 2020 should receive their state pension for 24 years on average. That is the same amount of time that we expected this group of women to receive their state pension for at the time that the pensions commission reported in 2005, when they were due to retire at 64.
Of the 2.6 million women affected by the change in state pension age, around 12 per cent face an increase of 18 months or more, and 1 per cent face the maximum increase of two years. That point was made by the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell. Survey data show that 70 per cent of these women are still in employment. While I accept that we are asking these women to work longer, they will benefit from additional income and a potential boost to their pension savings and entitlements. In response to the point made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds, data show that only 4 per cent of the women affected by these proposals have already retired.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, raised the issue of carers. Clearly, they are a most valuable group in society, and we acknowledge them as such. There has been a downward trend in the proportion of women who say that they are not in the labour market because of caring or domestic responsibilities—the figure fell from 10.7 per cent in 1998 to 6.9 per cent in 2010.
The data show that employment rates decline as people approach the state pension age. Currently, the average age at which women leave the labour market is two years below that of men, although it is still two years above the current state pension age for women. The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, made the point that women are less able to cushion the impact of any change. Current employment patterns for women in their early 60s are not a reliable indicator of future trends, as those women will already have started getting their state pension. It is difficult to predict with certainty how women will respond to the changes in the state pension age. I recognise that women are more likely than men to face competing demands in the form of caring and other responsibilities. Despite this, the figures show that the age at which women exit the labour market has risen steadily, from sixty-one and a half in 2004 to sixty-two and a half in 2010.
We had to act quickly to reduce the increasing costs imposed on the state pension system by the increase in longevity. It has not been possible to give a notice period similar to those given for previous increases in the pension age, but these women will still have between five and a half and six and a half years’ notice of an increase in their state pension age, enabling them in many cases to change their retirement plans.
In order to get to 66 by 2020, we have had to make some hard decisions. The noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, talked about our coalition plans. I point out to her in reply that the single-tier pension was also not in the government programme. Clearly, the new timetable creates a pension age gap between women born in March 1953 and March 1954, which increases from one to three years, but that is the most extreme contrast and applies only to women born in that month.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this extremely well informed debate. I entirely accept that the Minister is not insensitive to the timetable and the issues that it has raised. I note that he, too, accepts that the notice period which has been given is less than ideal. He spoke about the simplified state pension, or single-tier pension, in response to a question from the noble Lord, Lord German. I am not sure whether the noble Lord gained much comfort from what was said. Clearly, it is a good idea, but the Chancellor himself, in introducing the Budget, said that this was a long-term project, so how it will help today's debate is less clear.
I accepted when I moved the amendment that there is a difference on costings: our proposition achieves only two-thirds of the savings of the Government's proposal. Several noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord German, made the point that it is a matter of where you draw the line. The savings we are talking about are not savings today, tomorrow, next year or the year after that; they begin to accrue in a brief period until there is an alignment of the two in about 2018-19. It is inevitable, when we are talking about millions of pensioners, that the numbers will be big. That does not make them any less important. Dealing with a number in isolation is not very helpful; we need to put it in context. We also need to look at the other side of the equation. The extra savings that the Government said are borne by someone: the pensioners who are the subject of the amendment.
Several noble Lords talked about costs. The noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, widened the terms of the debate a little. He will forgive me if I do not answer in detail each of his points, because I do not want to lose his vote. The noble Lord, Lord German, said that costing was about a judgment: where you should draw the line. The noble Lord, Lord Flight, also raised that point. Neither we nor the Government have yet factored in any changes to our long-term cost profile that would arise from likely changes to the state pension age to 67 and 68 and wherever that leads. The noble Lord mentioned the age of 70.
Several noble Lords talked about the speed of change, including the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds. I think that the right reverend Prelate termed it a matter of justice, and that is absolutely right. He obviously speaks with some scars, as he said, from dealing with the Church of England superannuation fund. The speed of change is important. He also made the important point that the Bill is dealing with state pensions, but the changes being imposed and the extent to which they have disconcerted people do not help with general confidence in the pensions environment, which we should all be working hard to improve.
My noble friend Lady Hollis correctly focused on the coalition agreement. She made the very telling point that issues around longevity and the data that are being used to justify what the Government are doing were known when that coalition agreement was written. They are not new data. She talked about the difficulty of women who have been away from the labour market getting back into it to mitigate the effects of these pension changes.
My noble friend Lady Bakewell made the same point in a different way. She said that people formulate attitudes to retirement that are sometimes difficult to change. She also made an interesting point when she called for nuance. When you think about it, the difference between the Government’s proposition and ours is two years in arriving at 66 as the state pension age. The extra problem the Government have by doing it those two years earlier is that they have to mess with the 1995 timetable to change the timetable for equalisation. That does not arise if you do not start that move until two years later. We are talking about two years. It is not a huge gulf, but I accept it has not insignificant ramifications for costs.
The noble Lord, Lord Boswell, talked about not insubstantial sums. As he said, the numbers are inevitably going to be big. When we are talking about millions of pensioners, that will inevitably follow.
I am grateful for the support of the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, on this amendment. She has been a doughty campaigner on pension issues. She was relaying some of the concerns that many people have had expressed to them, especially by those who are going to suffer an extra two-year wait.
The noble Lord, Lord German, focused on the interesting point that we are hearing those who are involved in advocacy. He spoke as though there was somehow a problem with that. Part of the problem with pensions generally is that they are complex. People shy away from them. That is why auto-enrolment and all those issues are rightly being addressed. We need people who understand these things and have that expertise to speak on behalf of, particularly, poorer people who are sometimes less able to deal with the complexities of these issues. The extent to which the noble Lord is relying on the single-tier pension to ameliorate his concerns about these proposals will be interesting, but I am not sure how effectively he will be able to do that.
I hope I have done justice to each noble Lord who has spoken. I do not think the debate has changed my view of where we should be heading. I am well aware that it has not changed the Minister’s. This is a very important issue. There is a lot at stake here. Hundreds of thousands of women are affected by this, and their position could be ameliorated. On that basis, I wish to test the opinion of the House.
Baroness Murphy
“6th October 1953 to 5th November 1953 | 6th May 2018 |
6th November 1953 to 5th December 1953 | 6th August 2018 |
6th December 1953 to 5th January 1954 | 6th October 2018 |
6th January 1954 to 5th February 1954 | 6th November 2018 |
6th February 1954 to 5th March 1954 | 6th January 2019 |
6th March 1954 to 5th April 1954 | 6th March 2019 |
6th April 1954 to 5th May 1954 | 6th May 2019 |
6th May 1954 to 5th June 1954 | 6th July 2019 |
6th June 1954 to 5th July 1954 | 6th September 2019 |
6th July 1954 to 5th August 1954 | 6th November 2019 |
6th August 1954 to 5th September 1954 | 6th January 2020 |
6th September 1954 to 5th October 1954 | 6th March 2020 |
6th October 1954 to 5th November 1954 | 6th May 2020 |
6th November 1954 to 5th December 1954 | 6th July 2020 |
6th December 1954 to 5th January 1955 | 6th September 2020 |
6th January 1955 to 5th February 1955 | 6th November 2020 |
6th February 1955 to 5th March 1955 | 6th January 2021 |
6th March 1955 to 5th April 1955 | 6th March 2021” |
Baroness Murphy
My Lords, I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, will be here to speak to her amendment in due course, so I am speaking on her behalf. This is not a filibuster despite the comment I have just overheard. In Committee I spoke to the suggestion that we should have a halfway house and that there should be an amelioration of the difficulties that some people will face. I have today supported the Government in the main thrust of their policy but I think that a modest change to help the few who need it would be very helpful indeed. I am now assured that the noble Baroness is in her place, and no doubt she will outline her amendment in more detail. I beg to move.
Baroness Greengross
My Lords, I start by thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy. I am sorry; I did not realise that people had come back into the Chamber. I hope that my amendments will be seen as both positive and fair. They represent a compromise and would ensure that, if the Bill becomes law, no women born between 6 October 1953 and 5 April 1955 will have to work for more than one extra year before they receive their state pension. This is a particularly vulnerable group which was eloquently described by the noble Lord, Lord German, in his remarks on the previous amendment.
We know that life expectancy is rising much faster than many of us had realised, and during the Second Reading debate on this Bill I accepted the argument that rises in the state pension age must take place. However, I also said that while I understand completely that deficit reduction is a priority for the Government, this legislation could have a hugely negative impact on certain women. It will have a negative impact on many women, but some groups will be particularly affected. The 33,000 who are the worst affected will face a two-year hike in their state pension age. They will not have any possible opportunity—because they will not have had notice—that will enable them, even if they could, to plan financially for this delay in getting their state pension.
This group of women will be particularly and disproportionately hit by the Government’s proposals. It will also be the second time that these women have had their state pension age changed. Many will also be totally unaware of the changes and they will not be in any way prepared for them. Many of these women, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, illustrated graphically, will be single women and women on lower incomes, who face, as we know, lower life expectancy on average. Many of them have not had a chance to accumulate any form of private pension. They will be reliant solely on the state pension. Many of these women care for older parents or younger grandchildren, and sometimes both at the same time.
Furthermore, the timetable proposed in the Bill is faster than that laid out in the coalition agreement, which promised that the state pension age would not start to rise to 66 until 2020 at the earliest. I do not think I am alone in having received many letters illustrating this point from people who are going to be caught out by this change, which would in any case not offer any immediate help in cutting the deficit, because, as we have heard, there will not be any savings until 2016, by which time the Government plan to have eliminated the current deficit.
The figures in the table I have produced have been verified by some key experts in the pension field as dealing with a particularly difficult problem. Many people I know feel very strongly about this matter and by accepting these amendments the Government could—and I hope will—demonstrate that they want to help the people most affected and worst affected by this necessary reform of the state pension age. I very much hope that the Minister will support my amendments.
Lord Boswell of Aynho
I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, for moving her amendment, which is cognate with one that I moved in Committee. I have to say I was somewhat shaken by the Minister’s response because I do not normally go around as a fiscal incontinent. However, I accept the reproof of the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie of Luton, at my loose speech in my previous intervention on this issue when I quoted his cost at £10 billion per annum. That is of course a net present-value cost, and my cost, if I may call it that, is £7 billion per annum. Unless I have misread the amendment, the noble Baroness’s cost is very slightly more generous than mine would have been.
These are big sums but my point earlier, which I wish to talk about now, is that in making a macroadjustment—which I believe is essential and for which I established a case on which we have just triumphed—there is nevertheless a very real problem for individuals. I should say, if there is any doubt, that I have a certain background, if only because I have a household that is 80 per cent female, or was before my daughters grew up. I have no lack of sympathy with women’s issues and am well aware from the data that many women look forward to a less than generous pension and have not had an opportunity to build up the entitlement that some men have. Those are the data. We are gradually, by degrees, achieving social advance.
There is now a suggestion that, in dealing with the major problem that we have to address, we may be affecting a particular group of women very hard. We have to answer the question of how we deal with it. In terms of the overall cost of a grand architectural amendment, I can see that that would be very substantial indeed, which, as I have already indicated to your Lordships’ House, might well fall on taxpayers and the active working population of today—our children and our grandchildren. That would have adverse consequences. We have to find ways other than that of dealing with it. It is possible that one could make some slight adjustments within the system by flexing the exact provisions of the Ministers or the proposals of the Government or the proposals of the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, thereby sharing the cost between the various women who would otherwise be affected.
My concern, and it is a paradox, is that with the best intentions, as the Minister explained to us painstakingly in Committee, the equal treatment directive—I do not dislike the equal treatment of women and I do not as a matter of fact dislike the European Community—constrains us on sharing the burden with men, unless and until we have caught up to the common age of 65. The present arrangements are a derogation from equal treatment until we reach that equality of pension age which is inhibiting this process.
One way forward, which has been touched on briefly in the earlier exchanges, may be to look at something beyond the pension age of 65, or even 66, as a compensating adjustment for burden-sharing. An alternative approach would be to go for a specific targeted scheme, but there are some difficulties even with the law on that if one were to have a differential pension credit arrangement. I have asked the Minister some Parliamentary Questions on that. The cost is much lower, but it is indeed setting up a special scheme to try to sort out the problems of individuals.
If we could have a system whereby nobody went without their pension for more than 12 months, as the noble Baroness suggested, or something like that, we could reasonably argue, given the timescale—not perfect, not ideal, we have all accepted that—that that is something with which people could accommodate themselves. A doubling of their loss, or a further acceleration of the timescale, would not be acceptable.
I urge the Minister to try to find some acceptable approach, or to signal some acceptable approach, which can, within the constraints that have been mentioned, help this group of women who are seriously and significantly affected, where there is a sense of unfairness, or of harsh treatment, without as it were destroying the intentions or the efficiency of the overall change which we need to make. I hope the Minister will consider that very seriously. It is not a matter of party politics. It is a matter of a common feeling that we should try to do something. I very much hope that, one way or another, through our combined wisdom, or at least our combined persistence, we will reach an acceptable solution.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, on his amendment and I thank everyone for the very warm support that it got. Obviously, I would rather that amendment had won, but the vote was indeed very narrow. With that in mind, I would certainly want to support the proposal of my noble friend Lady Greengross, which would certainly do something along the lines that the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, was trying to achieve with his amendment.
If the Minister can find a way to accept that, it will give some comfort at least to those who feel strongly—and have shown how strongly they feel—about this issue. I hope he will bear that in mind when he comes to reply.
Baroness Grey-Thompson
My Lords, I rise to speak to this amendment as someone who is certainly not an expert in pension provision; I admit to finding a lot of it rather confusing. The amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, is a very positive and useful way forward.
What concerns me is not the arguments that we heard earlier about the 2.6 million women having to wait longer than expected, the 330,000 who will have to wait 18 months or even the 33,000 who will have to wait two years to receive their pension, but the fact that, of the current pensioners who live in poverty, two-thirds are women. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has made estimates about the poverty level, which it set at around £14,000 a year, and recognises that one in four women retiring today has less than £10,000 a year to live on. We know that women earn less pay on average, while taking time out to raise children means that they earn less over their lifetime. For me, though, the inequality in savings that women have access to is a stark reminder of where many women live today. The average savings in pension schemes of women between 51 and 59 are £37,000, compared to the £54,000 that men hold.
We have heard many case studies. I am very fortunate. I employ someone who is 56 and has a sister who is four years older. Maureen will have to wait 10 years beyond the age of her sister to receive her pension. This is someone who worked for a number of years, took time out to bring up a disabled child, went back into part-time work and, with nothing impelling her to contribute to a pension scheme, made decisions to try to save money but also had to recognise that there was a huge potential loss of salary in contributing to a personal pension scheme. I fear that we are going to alienate a large group of women and penalise them for making sound family choices to stay at home and bring up children and look after them.
It may be true that we need change and need to move on. It might be true that women have relied too heavily on their husbands’ careers and earnings in setting their pension limits, but I strongly believe that women deserve to have more time to adjust to this change in thinking.
Lord Stoneham of Droxford
We are very sympathetic to the noble Baroness’s amendment. I congratulate her on an important contribution to this debate on an issue that the Government must address. A number of reasons have been explained, in this debate and in the preceding debate, on why that is important. Men are not being disadvantaged by more than one year, but over half a million women are. The period of notice is inadequate. Women in this age group are some of the most disadvantaged in terms of their pension provision. We have to accept that there is a contradiction with the coalition agreement. We are expecting some assurances from the Government in this debate, but we also accept that this is largely a negotiating matter with the Treasury. We welcome the announcement in the Budget of the new basic pension.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, complained at Second Reading that the Pensions Bill ignored the £140 new basic pension, and said that it was like Hamlet without the prince. Now we have Hamlet with the prince but without a script. We want to see some details of the government proposals before committing ourselves to new transitional arrangements. We know that in present value terms the amendment will cost £7 billion, but the Government need to address the problem and come back with a considered amendment during the passage of this Bill in the other House with regard to how women affected by these transitional arrangements will benefit from the new higher basic pension.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, I will be brief because a lot of the arguments were effectively aired on all sides on the previous amendment. I support this amendment. I spent many hours—I will not say happy hours—last weekend trying to find a compromise, what I would call a fallback amendment, that would address the issue that we have all identified today. That issue is the women who are seeing an acceleration in the time that they have to wait—if that is not a reverse phrase—for their pension.
The Government are proposing to accept the existing timetable to 2016 but, instead of continuing it to 2020, to collapse it to 2018, so that what would have happened over four years is happening over two. That is what is producing the problems of bunching, the unfairness, the lottery, the roulette, one sister against another, one neighbour against another and the like.
We have heard the arguments. I tried, as I said, over many hours at the weekend to find a fallback compromise that overcame the problem of bunching without taking us up to 2020, but could not find one. What the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, has done, for which she has our warmest congratulations, is none the less concentrated on the post-2020 period and reduces somewhat the period by which pensionable age would rise to 66. That produces the £3 billion of additional savings that the Government are so anxious to secure. It also protects the situation of women. It is smooth, as no woman waits more than one year for every additional year of her age. It is fair to all women. It is a compromise: we get to 66 somewhat earlier than I would like. None the less, it overcomes the basic unfairness of women having random times until which they must wait, according to the random month in which they were born. You cannot make state public policy on the basis of such a lottery. The amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, addresses that issue, compromises on the later point and makes savings. I hope it will enjoy the support of the whole House.
Like others, I am thrilled by the proposal for a new state single pension of £140. I warmly congratulate the coalition in this House and the Ministers in the other place on it. Had there been eight bullet points, I would have agreed with eight out of eight instead of seven out of seven. I do not want to put this in a way that makes the noble Lord thump the Dispatch Box, but I hope he will today restore the honour of the coalition agreement by making it clear that he can accept this amendment or a version of it. The substance of what was promised in the coalition agreement by both parties forming the Government—that women’s pension age would not rise to 66 until 2020—will then be honoured, either through this amendment or the Government’s promise to come back with another. All sides of this House could then feel well content that they have protected some of the most vulnerable women, who rely solely on their state pension for their income in retirement. We will have treated them honourably, fairly and decently.
Lord German
My Lords, I echo the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, in saying that we look to the Minister to address the issue behind the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, which is that no woman’s pension age should be accelerated by more than 12 months. That is the issue that I raised in the earlier debate. It is a concern about equity. I hope that, in the architecture that the Minister may describe to us, he might find a way of answering that question. Whether it is this or some other architecture, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, just said, is not the issue at stake here; it is about the intention. It is the intention to create that level of equity that is important.
Unfortunately, I have a question for the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, when she comes to answer this debate. It is on a very technical point. This morning we took the liberty of plotting the dates in her amendment on a graph. Unfortunately, there were two kinks in the graph, which meant that it was not a straight line. I wonder whether, in the second line of the amendment, “August 2018” should not read “July 2018”; and, in the third line, whether “October 2018” should not read “September 2018”. That would produce a straight line. However, in the context of seeking agreement—and of the Government’s intention that no woman should wait more than 12 months, which I think was the intention behind the amendment—I hope that the Minister can give some support and succour to the amendment and the intention behind it.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, I will be brief. Like others, I warmly congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, on tabling this amendment, which addresses an issue of wide concern. It does not go as far as most of us would like; it raises the pension age to 66 one year earlier than we would want and one year later than the Government would want. However, apart from a couple of minor kinks, it smoothes the position so that nobody has to wait for more than 12 months. It is a considerable achievement to craft an amendment of that nature. We should be very grateful to the noble Baroness.
The issues are very much as they were previously. However, I would challenge the Minister. If the response was, “We like the look of this; we’ll try to bring something back, but we’ll do it in the other place”, then it would not be a particularly satisfactory one. The reality is that we stand a better chance of getting amendments through at this end than at the other end. What further information might the noble Lord and his team need to be able to produce an amendment now or at Third Reading? The noble Baroness seems to have given us a very good platform for moving forward.
I was not sure about the costing; the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, said that it was £7 billion. I would guess, from the Government’s point of view, that that is certainly an improvement from where we were on it. If the noble Baroness was minded to press the amendment, we would certainly go into the Lobby to support it.
Lord Freud
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, for this amendment, and for seeking to achieve a compromise position between what we have proposed and what the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, put forward—the rather more costly proposition that we were discussing a few minutes ago. No one wants to hear a rehearsal of all the arguments that we have just gone through, so I will avoid it. I thank the noble Baroness for her ingenious approach to trying to develop this compromise position. It is a real achievement that she has got ahead of the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, on a weekend when she had a towel around her head.
This amendment attempts to recoup at least part of the savings that are lost by a gentler transition to 66 years for women by increasing the pension age for men to 66 years first, and then staying within the European equal treatment directive. As she explained, the amendment is intended to ensure that no women will have their state pension age increased by more than 12 months, which would place women on a similar footing to men at least in respect of the adjustment that they would need to make. Picking up on my noble friend Lord German’s teasing about the kinks, I think that we should look at the intention here rather than at the exact drafting. I am very happy to do that, although it is nice to look at the kinks if you are a little techy about the subject.
This timetable would result in deferring the point at which a state pension age of 66 is reached until 2021. However, unlike the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, in Committee, which had the same end point, her amendment would cost some £2 billion compared to his £7 billion because the increase in state pension age for men to 66 by April 2020 would go ahead as we have planned. That is why this is such an ingenious amendment.
I must now air the issue of the equal treatment directive, which, frankly, has bedevilled the whole situation and created a lot of problems in devising how we approach it. I ought to spend a little time on the directive.
Directive 79/7 deals with the progressive implementation of the principle of equal treatment for men and women in matters of social security. It provides that there shall be no discrimination on grounds of sex in relation to the benefits to which it applies. When the Pensions Act 1995 was passed, the UK legislated to end gender discrimination in the state pension age by April 2020. Any change we now wish to make needs to be considered in relation to the position left by the 1995 Act. In particular, we need to consider whether any alteration would hinder progress towards equal treatment by either increasing the present gender gap in pension age or prolonging the period of unequal pension ages. Doubtless with the first of these considerations in mind, the noble Baroness’s timetable aims to control the gap. It is certainly the case that the difference in pension ages between men and women sharing the same birth date is no greater than it would otherwise have been under the original equalisation schedule. It does, however, result in a difference of treatment between birth cohorts. I shall try to illustrate that.
At the point that the noble Baroness’s timetable parts company with the proposals in the Bill—that is, for women born from 6 October 1953—the pension age gap between men and women for that birth cohort would stand at five months. It falls to three months for the following cohort but then starts to rise again, to a year for men and women born in March 1954, before rejoining the path set by the 1995 Act, albeit at a year older. By reducing and then increasing the difference in the state pension ages between men and women, and by delaying the final point of pension age equalisation by 12 months relative to the timetable legislated in 1995, the amendments can be seen to be adverse to the progressive equalisation of pensionable age both in themselves and by reference to the Pensions Act 1995.
As I said, the noble Baroness’s proposals would still reduce the overall savings by around £2 billion. While this is significantly less than the £10 billion price tag attached to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, it is still not a negligible sum. As I have tried to explain, the issue around this amendment is the extent to which it runs contrary to the progressive equalisation of pensionable ages currently on the statute book. As structured, it risks breaching the European directive and being unlawful. Therefore, I am not in a position to support the amendment or even to make any warm noises about it or the possibility of action being taken in another place, as the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, suggested. However, this House has expressed strong feeling on this matter and the message has undoubtedly gone out loud and clear. On that basis, I urge the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Murphy
I believe that I must respond to the Minister since I moved the amendment. I have listened to the debate very carefully and thank everyone who has spoken in support of the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross. I say to the noble Lord, Lord German, that I do not have a clue why the kinks have arisen. If I was the Minister, I would say at this point, “The noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, will write to you with her responses”. I am sure that we would all like to know the answer to that.
I am very disappointed with the Minister’s response.
Baroness Murphy
Although he is clearly hampered by the commitment to the directive, it does not seem to be beyond the wit of the Minister and his colleagues to devise a rather warmer response to the wish of this House that a compromise should be made. Given my experience on previous occasions, I think that it would be a good idea for the House to express its opinion on this matter. I wish to test the opinion of the House on this amendment.
Baroness Turner of Camden
“( ) After sub-paragraph (10) insert—
“(11) The Secretary of State may by regulations vary the provisions of this Schedule to provide for an earlier pensionable age in individual cases without loss of benefit in the event of—
(a) prolonged ill health, or(b) arduous or dangerous employment,or both.””
Baroness Turner of Camden
My Lords, I return to a notion that I raised previously in Committee, although I realise that I did not then formulate my amendment very well and I have made a change to the wording. I still hope, however, to persuade the Government that there is a serious issue here.
I agree, as I think we all do, that longevity, although very welcome, means that we have to look again at retirement ages. There must be some revision. Last year, I spoke to a briefing supplied by Age Concern about the default retirement age. Many people were holding jobs that meant a great deal to them, they did not want to retire and felt they had a great deal to contribute. That argument has largely been won.
However, I have always held the view that jobs are not all the same, and neither are people. Many are not particularly committed to their work, which is sometimes arduous and dangerous, and may not be suitable for older people who may simply be longing for the time when they no longer have to do it. It would be good to think that there would be lighter work to which such people could be transferred. Often, however, such work will not be available, and the people concerned may have manual skills but not the kind of educational background that would make it easy for them to do other work. After a lifetime in their original jobs, it may be better for them to retire and to receive the benefit that they had anticipated.
I recently received a nice letter from a lady who thanked me for what I had said in another debate on health and safety at work. It did not involve pensions, but it has some relevance here. She and her family had been trying for some time to obtain compensation following the death of her husband in a work accident. She sent me a copy of a magazine called Hazards, which campaigns for compensation for people injured in accidents at work, some of which lead to deaths. It does, however, serve to remind us that a great deal of the work that all of us depend on in our daily lives has hazards. We should not insist that the people who do it should simply go on and on. There is a case for treating them very differently from those who are committed to their jobs and want to work.
In the year from April 2009 to March 2010, 1.3 million workers reported that they were suffering from illness caused or made worse by work. It is often alleged that our health and safety at work system is the best in the world and that very few people are hurt at work. Unfortunately this is not completely accurate, although the Health and Safety Executive performs an excellent function in reducing work hazards. However, its resources are apparently being reduced, and that does not look so good. In any event, the HSE says that employers should be aware that there may be some reduction in physical and mental capacities with age and that suitable accommodation should be put in place. However, as I have indicated, this may not be easy. “Work till you drop” is not a good idea and may have dangers for other members of the workforce. I hope that the Government appreciate that there are real problems here. We are not all middle class, despite what the media tell us, and we often require people who have manual skills to work very hard on our behalf. We have a duty to ensure that they do not have to work beyond their capacity to perform their tasks, and that is the reason for my amendment. I wait with interest to hear what the Government have to say about it.
Baroness Drake
My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendments 11 and 14 in this group. In doing so, I have some sympathy with the concerns expressed by my noble friend Lady Turner. These amendments address the position of the poorest men and women in the population who are disproportionately impacted by the acceleration of the timetable to achieve the equalisation of the state pension age. Under this Bill the age of eligibility for receipt of pension credit, which is targeted on the poorest pensioners, increases at the same accelerated rate. This is because, under current legislation, the age of eligibility for pension credit is aligned with women’s state pension age. This means that a particular group of the poorest men and women, who would have been eligible to receive pension credit on certain dates between 2016 and 2020 under the Pensions Act 1995, will now have to wait up to two years longer to receive their pension credit income but with little time, certainly with little capacity, to adjust.
Pension credit in 2011 is £137.35 per week for a single person, so a deferment of up to two years can result in a loss of £15,000 for those affected. Even on a deferral of one year, the loss of income is still substantial to those concerned. Amendments 11 and 14 would ensure that both men and women who are presently in their late 50s and who are likely to be the beneficiaries of pension credit do not experience the markedly higher loss of lifetime pension income that would otherwise occur. This would be done by allowing the age of eligibility for pension credit to track the original equalisation timetable set out in the Pensions Act 1995. That would mean that those eligible to receive pension credit, both men and women and their birth cohorts, would do so on the same date between 2016 and 2020 as they would have done under the original timetable. I believe that these amendments may provide a more focused mechanism than that proposed by my noble friend Lady Turner in her amendment.
There has been much debate on fiscal sustainability when assessing timetable options for accelerating or mitigating the acceleration of the increase in the state pension age, but this amendment in no way undermines long-term fiscal sustainability. The savings from accelerating the age of eligibility for receipt of pension credit do not start to flow until 2016.
Lord Freud
My Lords, this group of amendments in effect aims to provide mitigations to the state pension age timetable. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, for giving us the opportunity to discuss the issues surrounding those in ill health and those in arduous or dangerous employment. Similarly, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, for her proposed changes to the pension credit qualifying age timetable.
The amendments were tabled with the intention of helping those people who might be described as vulnerable, as noble Lords pointed out. I very much agree with the principle that we should assist those who require additional support. However, a balance must be struck between doing the right thing for those people and making the system more complex and harder to understand when it comes to delivering that support.
As I said, Amendment 9 allows for mitigations to the proposed change to the state pension age timetable for those in ill health and those in arduous or dangerous employment. While I have great sympathy for the people these amendments aim to help, the arguments against accepting them that I set out in Committee have not changed. The changes would make the system too complex.
I will pick up a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, about the life expectancy of people on low incomes. There is good news here. Male manual workers saw a two-year increase in life expectancy at the age of 65 between the 1992 to 1996 and the 2002 to 2005 assessment periods. Women manual workers saw a one-year increase. When one drills down into the figures—I was looking at them this morning—one sees an acceleration for manual workers. Perhaps the nature of manual work is easing. In the latest period, life expectancy for both men and women improved more rapidly for manual workers than for non-manual workers. Between the 1997 to 2001 and the 2002 to 2005 periods, male manual workers saw their life expectancy rise by 1.2 years, against 0.8 years for non-manual workers. Clearly in this latest period there is very good news.
As I said, we have already made strides on the value of the state pension by introducing a triple lock. As we discussed, we are looking to reform and simplify the state pension, which has become unbelievably complex.
Baroness Drake
Perhaps I should have intervened a sentence or two earlier, but I was not sure whether the Minister had finished on the longevity point. I accept his point that the life expectancy of certain lower socioeconomic groups has also improved. However, the evidence of the Marmot review and of a recent NAO report also shows that inequalities are increasing in healthy life expectancy, and that this group is less likely to be healthy and therefore less able to re-enter the workforce at short notice in the accelerated timetable. I accept the general proposition about improving the state pension age.
Lord Freud
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Drake. We could get into a long debate here that perhaps would not be hugely valuable. The figures for life expectancy, healthy life expectancy and disability-free life expectancy are all moving up. They are moving up at slightly different rates for different people, but the general movement is in an encouraging direction. Healthy life expectancy is moving up almost as fast as life expectancy—just slightly slower.
I come back to the point about the state pension age and the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Turner. A state pension age that is different for different groups would take us further away from the goal of a new flat-rate, single-tier pension based on contributions, which is simple to understand. It is important for the state to be clear how much someone will receive in retirement, and it should be equally clear about when they can receive it. A variable state pension age will not help this. Now is not the time to bring in further complexity by introducing bespoke state pension ages for individuals.
Adding to the complexity of this concept is the problem of defining prolonged ill health or arduous and dangerous employment. It might seem straightforward to produce a list of health conditions and occupations, but our direction with welfare reform is precisely the opposite, away from categorisation of people towards individualising and looking at how they can function and what they are doing. We are looking towards assessing each person’s appropriate pension age. Then we begin to get into very difficult territory, which we will discuss under the personal independence payment and the capability assessment. I need not spell out for a third time how difficult that is.
People are working longer and are living longer and healthier lives. We need a system that takes into account recent changes. I must accept, with regret, that some people, due to ill health, have to leave work before they reach state pension age. However, it should be acknowledged that support is already available for those people. Although they may not be entitled to a state pension immediately, that does not mean that they are left with nothing. As my honourable friend the Minister for Pensions recently said, it is not a case of going from a £97 pension to zero: working age benefits will continue to be available for those whose state pension age has increased and those who are unable to work because of health problems. They may very well be able to claim employment support allowance. Support through other benefits and credits is available today and will continue to be available in future, whatever the state pension age. Indeed, the introduction of universal credit will make it much easier to see precisely what entitlements are.
We need to ensure the sustainability of the state pension system and our proposals strike the best balance between the impact on individuals and fairness to the taxpayer. I should make one slightly technical point, to which I think many noble Lords will be sympathetic. Changes to the state pension age should be made only following agreement in this place and another place. For the Government to be able to vary the provisions of the schedule through regulation is a significant power, and one which should not be treated lightly.
I turn to Amendments 11 and 14. The arguments remain the same. It is vital that our system strikes that balance. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, for tabling the amendments and allowing us to consider the role of income-related support for those over a specified age. The amendments would keep the pension credit qualifying age in line with the existing legislative timetable for women's state pension age. Their effect would be that the pension credit qualifying age would diverge from the women's state pension age from 2016, as proposed by the Bill. The amendments, while seeking to ensure that the pension credit qualifying age cannot be higher than the state pension age, also leave the door open to retaining a pension credit qualifying age below the state pension age—possibly permanently. That seems to me to be based on a fundamental misapprehension. The underlying assumption seems to be that by keeping the pension credit minimum qualifying age pegged to state pension age, we seek to attack the incomes of older people. That is just not the case. We think that, for all people of working age, the appropriate form of support is a working-age benefit.
The Government introduced the Welfare Reform Bill, which sets out the proposals for universal credit by 2016. There is widespread support for the principles underpinning universal credit—in particular, the principle that work should always pay. We should define people of working age by using the state pension age, not that of pension credit. We have used that only because state pension age has not been equal between men and women. The upper age limit for universal credit will be set at the pension credit qualifying age. That ensures that the appropriate work-focused and work-related support is targeted at those of working age. Providing an arbitrary age for pension credit which breaks the link with state pension would also compromise that important aspect of welfare reform. If it is not state pension age, when should it be?
Baroness Drake
I must correct the noble Lord, because I think that he is misrepresenting my amendment. It asks the Government only to commit to separating pension credit qualifying age from the women's state pension age for four years, from 2016 to 2020, to mitigate the impact on a particular group. It does not ask them to commit to a policy beyond 2020; that is for the Government to decide. We already have a precedent for separating state pension age from the qualifying age for pension credit, which is that of men. The amendment would not by the back door set a formula for the future; it simply provides that for a four-year period from 2016 to 2020 there is a separation to mitigate disproportionate impact. It does not require the Government to commit beyond that.
Lord Freud
Let me accept that that is the intention behind the noble Baroness’s amendment—although when we costed it, we had to make an assumption about how we then bring it back up to pension age. We need not be technical. It is important when we debate these matters that we debate the underlying intention and not worry about precise things.
I reinforce my point: if we divorce the minimum qualifying age for pension credit from the state pension age, with the exception that the noble Baroness pointed out, the minimum age for pension credit becomes arbitrary, and people would well ask why it is at that age, not one year sooner or one year later. As life expectancy increases, more and more people will want to improve their incomes by working for longer. We should celebrate and encourage that. The amendment goes completely against that principle. We are clear that we want people below state pension age to work if they possibly can. The point of the proposals is not to take money away from people, as some noble Lords have said, but to encourage people to go on working longer, which should leave them with more income. We cannot give up on those people. They deserve our help and support in their endeavours to support themselves.
The other misapprehension is that there is inadequate provision in the universal credit for those who cannot work—people in ill health or people who have worked in manual jobs, who may not be able to continue working as state pension age increases. Again, that is simply not the case. Universal credit is intended to provide appropriate levels of support for those of working age, including those who, for whatever reason, are unable to work or have limited capacity for work.
The amendment will give no comfort to those who want to make entitlements much clearer and more transparent in an effort to ensure that they reach those who need them. It would mean providing complex and confusing information to customers. Unfortunately, it would come into place just when we are introducing universal credit, which is designed to have a pure, simple messaging to people to convince them of how they need to interact with the state. By producing this new, complicated system, we would undermine that simple messaging.
Quite apart from the messages, it would also add significantly to the complexity of the benefits system, confusing the people it is designed to help and the organisation delivering it. In order to deliver that confusion, which would obscure entitlements and potentially discourage people from working in the years before they get their state pension, the amendment would present the taxpayer with an unaffordable bill. For the financial years 2016-25, we estimate that it would be around £1.9 billion, and there would be further costs in the years to follow, depending on when it is withdrawn.
The amendment would add complexity to the system and have the effect of withdrawing valuable in-work support for people below state pension age. It would obscure entitlements for those who need them most and incur a very substantial increase in expenditure. I think I have clearly set out the rationale for the Government’s position. It is simply impractical to assume that the system will be improved by adding further complications to an already complex beast. For these reasons, I urge the noble Baroness to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Turner of Camden
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response. I think he agrees that there is a problem here, but what he is telling me is that it is too complicated to resolve in the way that I have suggested. I will read very carefully what he said about it because I got the impression that he understands that there are problems about people who do dangerous and difficult work—people on whom we all depend in a modern environment. We do not notice that they are doing it until they cease to be there to do it, and we are not expecting that to happen very soon.
I thank my noble friend Lady Drake for what she said about pension credit. It is quite clear that her amendment on pension credit is intended to deal with the less well off. In that respect, it has to do with my amendment, which is concerned with poorer people. I therefore support what she said.
On my amendment, as time goes on, we may well see, although I hope it does not happen, that if you have accidents or incidents at work, there will be pressure for changes in that respect. I do not think we have finished with the argument about dangerous and difficult work. People do not expect to have to go on working in that kind of environment without any reasonable prospect of an earlier retirement. I shall read with interest what has been said about my amendment. What my noble friend does about her amendment is, of course, entirely up to her. I think it should be supported. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Drake
“Qualifying age for pension credit
(1) The Secretary of State must make regulations setting out the qualifying age for pension credit.
(2) The qualifying age for pension credit from 6th March 2011 until 6th March 2020 shall be set so that the timetable in Schedule 6 (Graduated timetable: qualifying age for pension credit) has effect.
(3) After 6th March 2020 the qualifying age for attaining pension credit shall be set at an age that does not exceed the age at which a person qualifies for the state pension.”
Baroness Drake
This amendment has been debated, but I want to restate that the cost of this amendment, based on the department’s figures, is £0.75 billion because we are looking at the period 2016-20. I am conscious of the business of the House, so I do not have the time to go into this, but universal credit does not match the generosity of pension credit for those who cannot re-enter the workforce in the accelerated timetable arising from the more rapid move to equalisation. I do not think that complexity is a defence against protecting the poor. I wish to test the opinion of the House.
Baroness Drake
Baroness Drake
My Lords, I rise to move Amendment 15 and speak to Amendments 16 and 19. The definition of the workforce who will be automatically enrolled into a workplace pension and benefit from the employer compulsory contribution and the tax relief or credit is a very important matter. The reforms captured in the Pensions Act 2008 were intended to achieve very wide coverage of the working population to facilitate them saving from a relatively early age, and for the private pension system to work for women.
Our concern with this Bill is twofold. First, Clause 5 excludes 600,000 people from auto-enrolment into a workplace pension by raising the earnings threshold a worker would need to reach, referred to as the earnings trigger, from £5,715 to £7,475. Secondly, Clause 8 gives too great a power to the Secretary of State to raise that earnings threshold and so reduce even further, by potentially some 1.4 million, the size of the working population who will, or could, benefit from automatic enrolment into a workplace pension. Amendments 15 and 16 seek to retain the earnings trigger at £5,715. The purpose of Amendment 19 is to limit the Secretary of State’s power on the extent to which he can raise the level of earnings threshold, once set, to no more than the higher of the increase in prices or earnings.
I turn to the reasoning behind our amendment. The Johnson review, commissioned by the Government on the automatic enrolment policy, concluded that the earnings trigger for a worker to be automatically enrolled into a pension should be aligned with the tax threshold, which will be £7,475 from April, and will rise to £8,105 from April next year. As we know, the aspiration of the Government is to raise it to £10,190. The Government accepted the Johnson recommendation and had committed to a figure of £7,475. The presumption of the Johnson review was that the earnings trigger would remain allied and track the tax threshold.
Although the Minister has stated that the Government will not necessarily automatically chase the tax threshold when setting the earnings trigger for automatic enrolment, Clause 8 of this Bill amends Section 14 of the 2008 Act and gives the Secretary of State unfettered discretion to do just that and increase this earnings trigger in line with the increase in the income tax threshold. Given the Government’s aspiration, if the earnings trigger chased a future income tax threshold of £10,190—in 2011-12 earnings terms—a further 800,000 workers would be excluded in any one year from automatic enrolment. Seventy-six per cent of these people would be women. Consequently, of the group targeted to benefit from workplace pension reform, 66 per cent would be men, but only 34 per cent women.
So many workers should not be excluded. Excluding a further 1 million people and losing £40 million per annum of employer pension contributions does not support the overarching objective of enabling low to moderate earners to save. It would have a disproportionate impact on those working part-time, of whom 5.87 million are women and 1.94 million are men. Recent labour market figures revealed that some 27 per cent of the workforce is now part-time. These figures also show two peaks in part-time working by women, one which straddles the 30s and 40s age group and one which is post-50. Under the provisions of Clause 8, they could be excluded from the benefit of automatic enrolment for significant parts of their working lives.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, I strongly support my noble friend’s amendment. The Government are essentially following the proposals of the Johnson report. I see red copies of it all around the House—I am sure that noble Lords have not consulted it for the first time as we now come to debate it. Having read that report, on which, as my noble friend said, the Government are basing their proposals to lift the trigger, I was completely unpersuaded. I thought that it was thin on everything except, possibly, employers’ preferences, which, left to them, would have no doubt pushed the earnings threshold to £10,000 or more. I am surprised, of course, by such a conclusion.
The Johnson report offers two reasons for raising the earnings trigger. The first is that such low earners are involved that even without NEST they would have a very high replacement income based on their state pensions in retirement, so they do not need an additional pension such as NEST. The second argument run by Johnson, and therefore presumably supported by the Government since it was relayed by the Minister in Committee, is that such people are so low paid that the sums they would achieve are not worth while. For example, if someone is earning £7,500 and the trigger is set at £5,700, they would bring in only about £130 a year for their pension pot.
Let us look at those two arguments. My response to the first argument, about high replacement, is, frankly, “So what?”. There is nothing to say that just because you are poor in your working life, you would break some golden Treasury rule by being at least as well off if not better off in retirement. It is simply an irrelevant argument. I shall make two points in response to the second argument about the small size of the pot. First, as the Johnson report acknowledges and as the Minister has rightly told us, many women will go on to higher-paid jobs, and even small sums started early enough will be valuable and increase persistency of saving and the savings habit. If someone has not enrolled, it will be that much harder for them to do so later on when a pay rise seems to be eaten up by auto-enrolment, and it will not happen.
From my quick calculations over the weekend, even if there was only the very modest figure of £130 a year in real terms going into a pension pot, I estimate that over 30 years that would none the less allow a woman to build up a pot of £8,000 to £10,000. Given a decent state pension, it obviously would not be sensible to annuitise that pot, since it would be below the trivial commutation limit, but it would mean that she would go into retirement with a modest but useful capital sum, perhaps for the first time ever. After all—and this is the question that I would like the Minister to address—that was exactly the previous Government’s argument, which I think the current Government have also run. We encouraged people to defer taking their state pension by one or possibly two years and, with the money saved from that deferment, provided a capital sum of £10,000 to £15,000 as a pension pot, which we further privileged by ring-fencing it and protecting it from pension credit. I stand to be corrected, but I take it that this is continuing and that the Government have not scrapped it.
In other words, a few years back the consensus around the House was that we thought it important to encourage people, mostly men, to build a modest capital sum for retirement by not drawing down their state pension at the age of 65 but deferring it for one or two years. Indeed, we so much wanted this to happen that we ring-fenced those savings by not allowing them to count against pension credit taper. When it comes to NEST and women, however, we do not seem to think that the same argument runs. I disagree with that. The one argument that was not run by Johnson, but might have been valid, was the means-test trap. But even that depended on a woman’s household income and on whether she was partnered. Given the single state pension in prospect—alleluia—that problem evaporates. We are allowing women to do this voluntarily, but as my noble friend Lady Drake said so rightly, these are precisely the women for whom voluntary enrolment is least likely to happen, is the least suitable, and for whom auto-enrolment is appropriate.
I would ask the Minister to remind us why it is acceptable to encourage men to build a small capital sum by delaying taking their state pension for a year or so, even protecting it against pension credit, but when it comes to NEST and where a woman might have a similar small capital sum, apparently it is not so desirable, even though her finances may be infinitely more strained. I hope that the Government will reconsider this. The Johnson arguments are simply invalid. They may give the Government a hook to hang on, but they do not run. The Government seem to be signing up to the notion that if you are poor in your working life, it is morally acceptable to be poor in retirement. I do not accept that and neither should the Government. If they are saying that the capital sum is not worth having, since we do not allow that argument to run on the state pension, we should not allow it on NEST. On both of those grounds, I hope that the Minister will offer his favourable support to my noble friend’s amendment.
Lord Stoneham of Droxford
I support the proposal in the Bill that the threshold should be reviewed in line with the Johnson report. I do so particularly in the light of the reassurance given by the Minister in Committee that there is no proposal from the Government to link the increase in the thresholds to the increase in tax thresholds.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
The noble Lord’s honourable friend in the other place, Mr Steve Webb, has made the contrary assertion.
Lord Stoneham of Droxford
Perhaps the Minister can clarify that, and I am sure he will. I do not know what the noble Baroness is quoting from since we remain committed to raising the tax threshold to £10,000, but we do not want this particular proposal undermined.
I shall come back to a further point that I think is important. The other interesting development is the new basic state pension. I am sure that my honourable friend the Minister in the other place will have had in mind his proposals on the threshold to align with what we are now proposing for the new basic pension. That makes sense. Too low a threshold, as we discussed in Committee, gives rise to considerable administrative problems and the issue of very small pension pots. I am sorry, but they are very small. They will be insignificant in the context of the improvement we will be making in the new basic state pension.
It is all very well for the noble Baroness to shake her head, but it is extremely dishonest to encourage people on low earnings to make contributions to their pensions which actually result in a low rate of return when they come to receive the benefit. Not only will they get that low return until we introduce the new state pension, but if they were in receipt of housing benefit they would actually lose income that they would have achieved through any increased pension.
Lord Stoneham of Droxford
I have already allowed one intervention and I should like to move on, since this is a short debate.
Finally, it is important to understand that too low a threshold may well encourage more lower income people to opt out than would a more realistic one. For those reasons, I support the proposal set out in the Bill.
Lord Freud
My Lords, there is clearly a lot of consensus in the House around auto-enrolment, but I am afraid that one of the areas where there is genuine disagreement—there are not many of them—concerns the right earnings triggers for it. The amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, seek to introduce a lower entry point for automatic enrolment, and we need to look at them with the amendment which seeks to cap annual rises in the automatic enrolment trigger to the higher general level of earnings and prices. Let me take a few moments to explain why it is our view that the threshold we are proposing is right and why reverting to a lower trigger would not be right. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, pointed out, we reached a recommendation on the level by leaning on the Johnson review, which considered a number of factors: earnings dynamics, family characteristics, and the replacement rate which the noble Baroness finds distasteful.
Let me explain why the replacement rate is an important factor. If you are earning a certain level of income through your working life, it does not necessarily make sense to take money out of that to have a better income later. That should be a choice for the individual—that is the theory of replacement rates. When you are looking at asymmetric paternalism and encouraging people to do things that they might not do if they thought about it harder or were equipped to make those assessments, it does not necessarily make sense to create a situation where people find themselves scrimping and saving during their working life to have a slightly better lifestyle when they are older. That might be the right choice, but it should not necessarily be something that we encourage.
If we only consider replacement rates, then the analysis done by the review shows that individuals with earnings in the £10,000 to £15,000-a-year range throughout their working life would, through the combination of the state pension and income-related benefits, receive replacement rates that are often in excess of 100 per cent. If it had been replacement rates alone that guided the setting of the threshold, it would have been set somewhere between £10,000 and £15,000. However, that clearly is not the whole story and the review recognised that. It recognised the importance of dynamic earnings, which mean that some of those who have low earnings today will still benefit from saving as they are likely to go on and earn more in the future, a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis. However, even that is not straightforward either—when a person’s earnings are low there is a genuine question about whether it is right to encourage them to save at particular times when they may very well have a pressing need to use all their income to meet present living costs.
That led the review team to consider individuals’ family circumstances. These may well mean that a low-earning individual with a higher-earning partner might benefit from saving even when their earnings are low, as it would help provide a decent replacement rate for the family as a whole. In the vast majority of families with both partners working, their total earnings are significantly higher than the earnings of just one individual. Bearing all these complicated and interrelated factors in mind, the aim of the independent review was to set a threshold which maximises pension saving for those for whom saving is valuable, while minimising the number of those brought in for whom it is not. In doing this and making its recommendations, the review team struck a very careful balance.
It is simply not correct to assert that all low earners will benefit from pension saving throughout their working life due to dynamic earnings, receipt of working tax credits or the fact that they live with partners who earn more; nor is it correct to say that all low earners will not benefit from saving. That is why we have the opt-in to allow those who will benefit from saving to choose to do so. Individuals who opt in and have qualifying earnings will of course still benefit from an employer contribution.
No earnings threshold will ensure that automatic enrolment is perfectly targeted, encouraging saving among all those who need to save while excluding all those who should not—unfortunately, the world is not that simple. That is why the review team sought to identify the correct balance between all these factors. The Government accepted its findings, including the adoption of a higher earnings threshold; this was widely welcomed by stakeholders. We believe that the starting point that we have proposed in the Bill on the basis of the review recommendation strikes the right balance between ensuring that we do not encourage persistently low earners or those experiencing a period of low earnings to save, while ensuring that those who clearly will benefit are able to be automatically enrolled.
We all agree that setting an appropriate earnings threshold for auto-enrolment is absolutely central to the success of the reforms. The arguments that I have heard today and during Committee have not persuaded me that there is sufficiently compelling evidence in favour of setting a lower threshold in the Bill when this is compared with what the review team has already considered in detail in reaching its recommendation.
Let me turn to the second element of the issue: the mechanism for revaluing the automatic enrolment thresholds year on year. The aim of the independent review was to set a threshold for automatic enrolment which maximises pension saving for those for whom saving is valuable, while minimising the number of those brought in for whom it is not. In doing this, the review team recommended that the automatic enrolment earnings trigger should be aligned with the tax threshold, currently £7,475. The presumption of the Johnson review was that the trigger would remain aligned with the tax threshold, unless future action by Government resulted in a fundamental change in its purpose or the relationship between them. The Johnson review is clear about its view on the right direction of travel.
The Chancellor has now announced the personal tax threshold for 2012-13 as £8,105. It is logical that this announcement has prompted the question, which my noble friend Lord Stoneham raised, as to whether it is our intention to uprate the automatic enrolment trigger to this figure for live running in 2012. We will want to undertake detailed work over the coming weeks and months to assess the impact of aligning the earnings trigger with that threshold of £8,105. We will look in particular at whether the right balance continues to be struck in terms of who is brought into auto-enrolment using this trigger, especially with regard to low earners and women.
It is appropriate to share with the House the figures that demonstrate the impact of moving up to £8,105. It would remove around 100,000 individuals from automatic enrolment. It is also appropriate to share with the House the fact that the bulk of those are likely to be women—our figure is 79 per cent, a proportion consistent with the impact of the rise to £7,475.
It is too early to say definitively that because £8,105 is the personal tax threshold for next year this will also be the auto-enrolment trigger. However, I can say that our expectation is that we would align with this figure, unless the evidence suggested that this was the wrong thing to do. It is therefore worth my repeating here the commitment I made at Committee that as well as the uprating order being subject to an affirmative debate, we will prepare an impact assessment to accompany the uprating order for each of the first five years up to and until shortly after the 2017 review. This will give us the opportunity to explain in detail to the House how and why we are proposing to uprate the auto-enrolment trigger and inform the affirmative debates that we will have annually.
Times are changing—as we debate these issues, the Chancellor has announced not only a new personal tax threshold but a major review of the operation of tax and national insurance contributions. It is vital therefore that we retain for the long term the flexibility in the uprating power to allow us to consider a number of factors.
Baroness Drake
I thank the Minister for that detailed response. I will reflect on some of the points that he has made.
I have sympathy with the point my noble friend Lady Hollis made that, if one spends time on the evidence compiled in the Johnson review, one can see that it can be deployed for not raising the threshold as persuasively as it can for raising it. That is one of the problems. Certainly, there is some persuasive evidence in that review that the earnings trigger should not rise above the order of £7,475 in today’s terms. Even looking at that evidence and listening to the Minister’s arguments, I can understand—I may not accept—the argument that runs that if one is moving to a single-tier flat-rate pension of £140, then an auto-enrolment figure of £7,465 may be appropriate, but that does not go to chasing an income tax threshold to £10,190, which is designed to achieve something quite different.
When it comes to the issue of replacement rates or who should be smoothing their income over their lifetime, and who needs to firmly hold on to their income over their lifetime because they are not well off enough to let it go and smooth it, we have to be very careful what is said. Again, I go back to the Johnson review; most people are not persistent low earners. Their aspirations on their replacement rates will not be determined by the low earnings they may have at a particular point in time; and those low earnings should not interrupt their persistency of savings. Equally with women, one has to look at household income, because one of the principal points of the pension reforms was that they work for women. As the Johnson review itself said, they may be in a household with someone who is working full-time or earning much more; they may be precisely the people who should be saving and their period of lower earnings as a part-timer may not be at that level over all their working life. Equally, to get the desired replacement rate, one has to have persistency of saving; one will not get there on five or six or seven years of saving. If one sets a trigger for auto-enrolment which interrupts that persistency of saving when someone moves to a lower level of earnings, that is not very efficient. Also, for those on lower and more modest incomes, no reference was made to how the tax credit system can make it pay to save, providing tax relief as high as 50 per cent or 60 per cent for some individuals, which when taken with the employer contribution should not necessarily be income forgone.
We will look with interest at the impact assessment that will be brought forward in each of the next five years, because I have expressed our concerns on this issue. Flexibility for changing circumstances is often driven by short or medium-term considerations: having a successful pension system is a long-term project and it needs people to be engaged in saving over a very long period. Having expressed those reservations, and recognising that there will be an impact assessment, I am sure that others will return to this issue. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.