Pensions Bill

Debate between Baroness Drake and Baroness Turner of Camden

Wednesday 15th January 2014 Grand Committee

[Baroness Drake]

My Lords, perhaps I may reiterate for continuity that the areas for concern with PFM can be grouped into three: confidence in the basis for the Government’s decision, differing views on what benefits the saver and the need to protect dormant pots already accrued.

When it comes to the basis for the Government’s decision, where are the significant barriers to be overcome before the Government can be confident about the superiority of the PFM model? The consequences of getting this wrong are huge. Yet the transfer model is in the Bill when there are so many conditionalities still to work through, and confidence in securing lower charges, which is the main benefit claimed for the PFM model, are by no means assured.

PFM requires effective pan-industry collaboration, but what if that is not forthcoming? Are the Government confident that they can overcome industry inefficiencies and conflicts of interest, so well articulated by the noble Lord, Lord Turner? The DWP is working with the industry to find an IT solution to match pots to members. There are significant technical challenges to overcome, standardisation to be achieved and the industry as a whole has to reach a consensus that prioritises the savers’ interests. If and when that is achievable are unknowns, but the Bill locks us into pot follows members.

Some providers will have an interest in getting rid of small, less profitable pots but will also have an interest in setting a pot size cap to defend their more profitable pots. They will have a natural antipathy to an aggregator with a pot cap that increases to a certain level. However, the pot limit chosen for automatic transfer will affect the number of separate pots that a saver builds up over their working life. It is one of the issues that goes to the heart of the efficiency of the aggregator model or the consolidation model chosen. Depending on the assumptions about the aggregator or how many active member and dormant-member pots that it has, the administrative savings can be greater than those that have been estimated in the impact assessment.

The department comments in its impact assessment that, overall, the results of its modelling suggest the aggregator scheme will achieve slightly less consolidation than PFM, but that needs to be set against the greater control that an aggregator scheme could provide in mitigating other risks that come with an automatic transfer mechanism. It would also be interesting to see the results of modelling that includes today’s dormant pots. I would like to come back to this. Equally, pot follows member cannot be implemented without raising quality standards, or the Government risk transferring the savings of millions of ordinary people into myriad schemes over which they currently have little quality control.

Even if the Government succeed in getting all schemes to a minimum quality standard, there will be a wide range between minimum standard and best practice. For example, consider a modestly paid worker who leaves a good scheme provided by a major retailer and goes to work for a two-person employer running a small shop, whose workplace scheme has higher charges, poor governance and a less suitable investment strategy. Would it really be wise to default several thousands of pounds of the worker’s savings into the new employer’s scheme? Regulation could set standards for aggregated schemes above the qualifying standards for automatic enrolment schemes, raising those standards in order to mitigate the risks that can occur on transfer.

Against that, PFM increases the regulatory burden to oversee a myriad schemes into which automatic transfers would be made, rather than focusing on leveraging very high standards in a few aggregated schemes. There is the potential for significant burdens on employers involved in transferring small pots to any number of schemes. Under PFM, every scheme would potentially need to be capable of communicating with every other scheme. Aggregators could pose a lower burden, as there would be—or could be—a much smaller number of such schemes.

Automatic enrolment was intended to carry a lighter regulatory burden for employers, especially SMEs, but this seems to be rowing in the opposite direction. The National Employment Savings Trust, which embraces the most transient low to moderate market, could consequently face higher administrative costs as a result of PFM. What is the consumer detriment to NEST members whose pots are transferred into the schemes of new, small employers, and out of the protection of the high governance standards in NEST?

With pot follows member schemes, the department expects that over the long run average charges would reduce as efficiency savings are made by the industry, but a reading of the impact assessment lacks confidence. Paragraphs 67 to 69 list some of the risks to which I have referred, but paragraph 70 concludes rather sweepingly that,

“the Department would expect the gains and losses from differences between scheme charges and investment performance to cancel out on average”.

When it comes to savers benefitting through lower charges from the administrative savings that providers may make from PFM, paragraph 71 comments that,

“there is a risk that some providers will not experience the resource savings projected”.

Paragraph 72 reminds us of the,

“uncertainty surrounding the assumption over the savings that providers will make”.

This is not the firmest of springboards from which to lock into a solution on the front of a Bill. On the differing views of what benefits the saver, PFM does not currently accommodate people who leave the labour force or become self-employed, as they have no employer scheme into which to transfer their pot. Their ex-employer may nevertheless default them into a poorer personal pension because they do not allow ex-employees in their existing scheme, which I must say is a growing trend. What of women who leave to become carers, move to a new employer, or who work part-time but because of the level of the earnings trigger are not auto-enrolled into the new employer’s scheme?

As has been argued by NAPF and others, pot follows member increases the risk of charges and transaction costs being incurred on the whole pension pot, rather than on the incremental amount saved with the previous employer. If the saver works in an industry characterised by frequent job changes they will be more vulnerable to these risks, which an aggregator could reduce.

Even where individuals choose to transfer to their new employer’s scheme, they face supply-side barriers. Transfers can take weeks if not months, and complexity and lack of standardisation combine to cause delay and increase costs. At decumulation the buying power of a larger pot can be harnessed by the individual, but the buying power is even better if open-market options can be exercised in bulk. Aggregators could facilitate and do this.

I turn to the third element, which is the need to protect dormant pots that have already been accrued. A key weakness in pot follows member is that it excludes existing dormant pots. An aggregator could pool an individual’s dormant and live pots because aggregation would not depend on an active scheme member moving to a new employer. Pot follows member at the point of introduction only consolidates live pots with future live pots. Today’s dormant pots are completely ignored. No start date has been set for pot follows member, as my noble friend Lady Sherlock has indicated, but by 2016 some five years’ worth of dormant pots will have been built up under automatic enrolment, and they will be excluded from the PFM proposition. The summary of the impact assessment points out that those with dormant pots before the start date will,

“remain in their existing scheme”.

That is a key weakness in this solution. Equally, it cannot be right that they should stay with their existing scheme in every instance because some employers will simply default these pots into alternative arrangements anyway if the former employee does not voluntarily transfer. If they are not allowed the option of access to PFM or the aggregator, the employer may well default them anyway into a personal pension.

Finally, the issue of pension pots is not only a future one, it is also one of legacy. Quite a lot of work is being done on standards and reviewing legacy pots by the DWP and the OFT, and there is work to come out of the FCA. I would ask this question: is there to be no synergy on the solution to transferring small pots post-2016 under auto-enrolment, and the solution to the problems that may be revealed in the audit of legacy schemes arising from the OFT investigation? Is it really going to be a set of parallel lines in looking for the solutions to cover the legacy problem, which could also be in auto-enrolment savings pots because of the 2016 dateline and what evolves in the future?

Amendment 62ZC clearly maintains the power of the Secretary of State to make arrangements for the transfer of pension pots, because everyone sees the compelling need to have some way of aggregating or consolidating these small pots. This amendment provides an opportunity to rethink the model to be chosen, but it does not of itself substitute an alternative model. The Government can eventually decide on the alternative model, and new primary legislation would not be needed—but it would not lock us in. The effect of the amendment would not be to lock us in to the PFM model at this stage. The reason for that is, I would say, because the case is not proved, members’ interests are not truly being defended, and there is no synergy with any dormant savings that may exist prior to the implementation of PFM before 2016. I believe that all these issues need much more consideration.

[Baroness Turner of Camden (Lab)]

My Lords, I have not spoken on this item hitherto except briefly at Second Reading. In my opinion, it is one of the most important issues before the Committee. That is because it is quite obvious that the Government want people to save. Everything they have been telling us about pensions indicates that they want people to save. What happens if people do save, but then they transfer jobs? Nowadays, of course, people do not stay in the same job for their lifetime. They may have several or even many changes of job in the course of a career. What happens to the pension pots that they accumulate? If there is no safety in those pension pots, the whole thing will be a disaster. I support strongly what my noble friends have said. It is clear that this is something that requires a great deal of attention.

Is the regulator to have more powers to deal with this? It is obvious that you cannot have a situation in which pension pots are put at risk because there is no way of handling the market or for dealing with people who will be forced to make choices for which they do not have the necessary skills or experience. They cannot make the right kind of choices and they may end up with a bit of a disaster instead of a reasonable pension, or even a reasonable lump sum to place with another pension provider. Again, I hope that the Government will take seriously what has been said in this debate. It is a very important issue.

Welfare Reform Bill

Debate between Baroness Drake and Baroness Turner of Camden

Wednesday 14th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Turner of Camden]

My Lords, this is a very short amendment which I came to as I leafed through the Bill before writing any amendments down. It is an attempt to amend and make clear what is meant by work-focused interview requirement. The Bill states:

“The Secretary of State may specify how, when and where a work-focused interview is to take place”.

We must bear in mind that we may be dealing with a number of people who are not terribly well or who are not very well clued up about what arrangements are necessary. There would, presumably, be some sort of sanction if the claimant did not turn up. I have therefore drafted an amendment which enables a claimant who cannot comply with the requirement to attend a work-focused interview to provide medical evidence to say that, on that occasion, they are not able to turn up. In that way, they would avoid any sort of sanction which might exist. I hope that this, or something like it, will be acceptable to the Minister. As we are dealing with people who are often not very well, I am trying to make it clear that there is no sanction if they simply cannot make it.

[Baroness Drake]

My Lords, I have Amendments 23A and 24A in this group. Amendment 23A requires the Government to have regard to the interests of the child when operating work conditionality and work availability requirements under universal credit. Work availability applies not only to those seeking work but can set requirements on those in work to increase their hours of work or to seek higher paid work. This conditionality has acquired greater significance because the Government will expect people with children aged five and upwards to be subject to full work requirements and are extending full work requirements to couples with children.

I do not seek to make a speech about what the needs of the child are and I do not seek to debate the detail of how work availability requirements will operate, though I have my opinions. What I do seek is to place a requirement on the Government to implement and operate work availability requirements with reference to the interests of the child of any carer subject to work conditionality. Universal credit imports a novel and extensive level of discretion over a sizeable section of the working-age population and powers to follow through with sanctions. However, a policy that is premised on the belief that parents and their attitude to benefit or responsibility are better if they work has to be balanced by the need to protect the interests of the child of the carer, subject to such conditionality.

It is not a question of whether we do or do not accept the Minister’s assurances; I am sure he gives them in good faith. But those assurances are not of themselves sufficient. If the Government want to take, for the Secretary of State, a powerful range of discretions necessary to apply work conditionality, which even the Minister admits is not fully defined or refined operationally, then Parliament should require the Secretary of State to exercise those discretions with reference to the needs of the child whose care will be impacted by the application of that discretion.

In response to concerns on this matter expressed in Committee, the Minister said:

“Jobcentre Plus does not dictate to parents the type of childcare or which provider they should use”.

He added:

“Advisers will continue to have an important role in both challenging and supporting parents who may have preconceived ideas about childcare”.

Furthermore, he said:

“Where the adviser considers that the parent has not taken reasonable steps to identify or access appropriate childcare they will refer the question to a decision-maker. The sanction will only be imposed if the claimant does not have a good reason”.—[Official Report, 26/10/11; col. GC 326-327.]

He had earlier said that,

“in due course we will provide more detailed guidance on how the system will operate in practice”.—[Official Report, 26/10/11; col. GC 296.]

That is a lot of guidance, a lot of discretion and a lot of work still to do, even though some reassurances are given. Currently, there is also a lack of clarity as to what would or would not be a good reason for a carer not to have access to childcare.

The amendment does not seek to answer those questions but seeks to insert in the Bill a requirement that the work availability requirements have to operate by reference to the interests of the child or any carer subject to them. Amendment 24A seeks to exempt family and friends, and kinship carers, from the conditionality requirements to seek work for a period of 12 months when they take on a child or children who cannot live with their parents because of parental death, drug or alcohol abuse, serious illness or imprisonment—most of whom would otherwise end up in local authority care. These carers are doing an enormous service, both to the vulnerable children and the state. Such carers often step in in extremely difficult circumstances, often at short notice, and voluntarily embrace responsibility to protect the child. Such children are covered by an order under one of the various provisions laid out in this amendment.

It is important to remind ourselves that we are talking of a population of some 200,000-plus highly vulnerable children who are being raised by grandparents, older siblings, other family members or friends. If just 5 per cent of the children currently in family or friends’ care were in independent foster care, this could add £500 million a year to the cost of providing for children in care. A number of provisions in the Bill could unintentionally disadvantage family and friends carers, and one certainly wants to avoid the risk of children needlessly being taken into care. These include not only the conditionality requirements I am referring to but other matters such as the benefit cap, to which I hope to return.

However, it is important to recognise that three in 10 family and friend carers give up work when a child moves in, and a similar number reduce their hours, often because they are told to do so by a social worker because of a trauma that the child has experienced that has led to them being taken into the family and kinship care. Many of the social workers feel that the carers have to do this in order to meet the child’s needs. Someone who adopts a child is entitled to adoption leave, but family and friends carers have no such entitlement to help them to settle a child—during what is often a very difficult period when they first arrive—and cope with the upheavals in their lives. They often have to take on these children without notice and often to avoid the children being taken into care.

In Committee, an amendment was tabled to give working-age family and friend carers exemption from conditionality requirements for one year after a child moves in. I recognise that I may not have the influencing powers of my noble friend Lady Hollis of Heigham, but it is very much welcome that in Committee the Minister made a very intelligent observation when he recognised the enormous contribution that family and friends carers make to society and children, and that it makes good sense to support them. I quote the noble Lord, who said:

“I am absolutely convinced that this is a key area and am currently looking closely at ensuring that this group is treated appropriately under the universal credit … However, we recognise that clarity of treatment and a clear legislative exemption could be of value”.—[Official Report, 26/10/11; col. 338.]

The Minister concluded:

“I am on the case”.—[Official Report, 26/10/11; col. 341.]

I am delighted by that. I hope that he is still on the case. I urge him to translate his warm words into action by supporting the amendment.

If the Minister is unwilling to accept the amendment, will he instead be willing to commit to introducing protection for kinship carers through regulations? I specifically ask him commit to include in regulations that there should be an exemption for conditionality requirements for family and friends carers for one year after taking on the care of a child who is not their own; and that family and friends carers who are required by the local authority to give up work or reduce their hours to look after such a child or children will be entitled to have their jobseeking requirements switched off or constrained for the duration of that requirement.

Pensions Bill

Debate between Baroness Drake and Baroness Turner of Camden

Monday 31st October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Drake]

My Lords, I can see the purpose of Amendments 18 to 23, particularly the need to address the consequences of the Government’s decision to use the CPI for the statutory revaluation of pension benefits, yet not proceeding to introduce a statutory override to pension schemes whose rules explicitly provide for the revaluation additions to be calculated by reference to the RPI. I recognise that where the statutory method uses the CPI, there is an inconsistency for schemes that apply the RPI in the very infrequent event that the CPI exceeds the RPI in a particular year. In such a situation, schemes paying the RPI would, without these amendments, be faced with a statutory underpin of CPI. In effect, the rules of schemes that apply RPI would be interpreted to mean that revaluation is calculated by reference to the CPI or the RPI, whichever is the greater.

This amendment would remove that underpin requirement and allow schemes to continue to revalue by reference to the RPI, which would seem sensible and reasonable. While the Government are to be congratulated on not imposing a statutory override on pension scheme rules to apply the CPI rather than the RPI, where the rules so explicitly provide, the need for these amendments occur in part because of the open-ended decision by the Government to substitute the CPI for the RPI in the uprating of most benefits. It is with some regret that the Government did not put a time limit on that switch from RPI to CPI. There is scope for a review because I am sure that over the long term, when the economy returns to strong growth and earnings outstrip prices, and the price of key items is excluded from the indexation, the Government will need to revisit this matter.

That is particularly so for pensions, although I doubt that the Government will revisit this now. The change to the CPI from the RPI for evaluation effects a switch of assets and benefits from scheme members to scheme sponsors and does not directly impact the public deficit. None the less, it is clear that these amendments are a necessary flow-through from the Government’s decision, and I can see no reason to oppose them.

Amendments 24 to 28 are technical in nature and address matters relating to the indexing of the guaranteed minimum pension. Again, I see no reason to disagree with them.

[Baroness Turner of Camden]

My Lords, during our discussions on the Bill, one of the issues that raised a lot of controversy was the report that the Government intended to tell occupational pension schemes that in future they must apply the CPI rather than the retail prices index. That certainly led to a lot of opposition from people in occupational schemes. It also led to a lot of opposition from people in public sector schemes, because I gather that the Government are applying the CPI to public sector schemes instead of the retail prices index, which of course produces—currently, anyway—much larger increases than the CPI. I should therefore be grateful for confirmation from the Government that if an occupational scheme desires to continue with the RPI it will not be forced to apply the CPI, and that if it wishes to apply the retail prices index it will be able to do so, even though that is likely to produce—and will continue to be likely to produce—larger increases than the CPI.

Pensions Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Drake and Baroness Turner of Camden

Wednesday 30th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[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.

Pensions Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Drake and Baroness Turner of Camden

Tuesday 1st March 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Turner of Camden]

My Lords, I am attempting to follow on from what I said at Second Reading, when we discussed the Bill in its entirety. I said at that time that there were many people, mostly men, who wanted to work on and who enjoyed the jobs they were doing, and did not object at all to working on. I made the point, however, that not all jobs or all people were the same. There were instances where I thought that there should be provision for some flexibility, and that is what my wording seeks. It may not be particularly marvellous wording and I am not committed to it, but I have some concern about the issues raised by it.

There are numerous people—mostly those who have manual skills but both men and women—who perform work that, if it is not done, we would notice and we would no doubt complain about it. We complain if our hospitals and schools are not properly cleaned and if we cannot get work done on the maintenance of our homes, if we want somebody to do it. These are the sort of people who, generally speaking, do not have a great deal of educational attainment, and whose skills are manual. They often, at the end of their working lives, look forward very much to being able to retire at what was the standard retirement age, but they now find that they are expected to work for longer, and in many cases they do not want to do so. In many cases they feel that enough is enough. They have had enough working time doing the sort of arduous, not particularly interesting and perhaps even back-breaking job that they have been doing, and they want the opportunity to retire. We want to make provision for people like that to be able to retire earlier. Often they have health problems of one sort or another. That is made clear in my amendment, where I say,

“case of illness or infirmity”.

My noble friend Lady Hollis has already drawn attention to the fact that there are many instances of, and much information available about, the ways in which some poorer people at the end of their lives are subject to ill health of one sort or another, and who should therefore not be expected to continue to work in order to acquire entitlement to their state pension, and certainly not when more years are required. That applies equally to women. Again, as I have said, if you have been doing a job cleaning, you may not want to go on and on until you are 66 or whatever. Certainly, although lighter work might be available, they might not be able to do it. I remember talking to a cleaner who said, “I have not got much education. I am not very good at reading or writing. I could not do another sort of job; I can only do this sort of work”. These people are valuable to us. We notice it very much, and do not like it, if they are not there to do the work that we expect in order to keep our lives reasonably comfortable. I therefore think that arrangements should be made for some flexibility in relation to people doing arduous and sometimes dangerous work. We do not want elderly people clambering up ladders in order to do construction work. That is not a good idea, and it might not even be safe for them to do it. We ought to have a degree of flexibility. I am not wedded to this wording, but that is what I am after, and it is worth considering.

[Baroness Drake]

I express my sympathy with the sentiments that concern my noble friend Lady Turner in her amendment. As we can see from the previous debate, the acceleration of the equalisation timetable is disproportionate in its impact on the poorest and on those with disabilities, many of whom will have worked in manually demanding professions. I look to speak to that issue in my Amendment 7. Although I have great sympathy with her concerns, I am not sure whether the state pension age is the right mechanism for recognising the disparity in life experience that people have, and it may take some time to reduce that disparity of experience or outcomes as a result of working life experiences. Certainly, initiatives aimed at improving health generally and reducing the disparities between socioeconomic groups and geographies—because that can be quite distinctive as well—are important, because I have a great deal of sympathy with the point made by my noble friend Lady Hollis, who said that when you look closely at the figures, certainly for lower socioeconomic groups, the healthy life expectancy rate of improvement is not as great. One does not absolutely know how that will evolve over time, which is why it is important that the Government retain initiatives aimed at reducing existing health disparities.

Flexibility in working arrangements is also extremely important because, regarding scrapping the default retirement age—of which I approve—and other stated policies to improve the working position of older people, it is one thing to have a policy but it is quite another challenge to deliver the changes and cultures in working practices at the work face to deliver the flexibility in working arrangements that you need for older people. Certainly, changing employers’ practices and attitudes is important. Those may be more effective mechanisms in reducing that disparity over the long term.

Having said that, if ill health disparity persists between socioeconomic groups, and one does not know how that will evolve—in terms of ill health the early signs are that those disparities could persist—a Government may well want to look at the qualifying age for pension credit to deal with those issues, where it is not possible for someone with ill health to address the disadvantaged-income position that they will be in. The Government should certainly remain open to that, depending on how the figures evolve.