Pensions

Lord McKenzie of Luton Excerpts

Wednesday 19th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord McKenzie of Luton (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement and for advanced sight of it. We have been waiting keenly to see how and when Ministers would finally respond to the Cridland report but, frankly, the response is disappointing. Only yesterday Sir Michael Marmot described how a century-long rise in life expectancy was,

“pretty close to having ground to a halt”.

John Cridland himself acknowledged in his report that inequality in pension outcomes remains, with certain groups in particular at risk of lower incomes in retirement. There are significant variations in life expectancy across socioeconomic groups.

Yet in this Statement, the Government have confirmed their intention to accept the headline recommendation of the Cridland report: that the state pension age should rise to 68 over a two-year period between 2037 and 2039. Astonishingly, there is nothing whatever in the Statement to acknowledge the issue of inequality in income and life expectancy. There is nothing in it about the huge variations in life expectancy in our country, or about how the Government will address improvements in morbidity—people’s general health—not keeping pace with people’s life expectancy. There is nothing about the wide variations in retirement income.

I would like to ask the Minister some questions. The Conservative Party election manifesto promised that it would,

“ensure that the state pension age reflects increases in life expectancy, while protecting each generation fairly”.

How does the Minister justify that promise, given this Statement? The Statement says that the Government will carry out a further review before legislating to increase the state pension age to 68, in order to consider the latest life expectancy projections and evaluate the effects of rises in state pension age already under way. Does that mean that Ministers may not enact the rise in state pension age to 68 after all? Is this a policy or just an aspiration?

What is the Government’s position now on the triple lock? Cridland recommended that it be abandoned; Labour pledged to keep it; the Tory manifesto pledged to ditch it from 2020 and move to a double lock, but the DUP rather likes it. Can the Minister clarify the Government’s position on the future of the triple lock? What is her response to the Cridland recommendation that those with caring responsibilities and ill health should be able to access pension credit a year earlier than the state pension age?

Labour has pledged early access to pension credit as a way to protect the WASPI group of women, who found themselves suddenly facing an increased state pension age without enough notice to enable them to plan. I hear that the Prime Minister was looking for ideas. Would she perhaps like to adopt this one? What is the Government’s plan to communicate with people who will be affected by the change in the state pension age? What lessons have they learned from the debacle of their previous repeated accelerations of changes in the state pension age, resulting in so many WASPI women struggling in their final years of working life? What assurances can they give the House that this will not happen again?

The Minister referred to plans for the single financial guidance body and its support for consumers, but is not the state pension excluded from its operations, subject to amendments we will be considering later?

What is the Government’s stance on the other Cridland recommendations? Will they commit to not raising the state pension age by more than one year in any 10-year period? Do they agree that conditionality in universal credit should be adjusted for those approaching state pension age to ease the transition into retirement? Do they accept the idea of statutory carers’ leave along the lines of SSP? What about the proposal that those over state pension age should be able to part draw down the pension, deferring the rest?

This Statement raises more questions than it answers. We can only hope that the report, when we have had a chance to study it in detail, will elucidate some areas. Labour want a different approach to this pensions crisis, which means more work for millions and absolute chaos for 50s-born women who have already had their state pension age quietly pushed back. In our manifesto, we committed to leaving the state pension age at 66 while we undertake a review into healthy life expectancy, arduous work and the potential for a flexible state pension age which recognises years of work and contribution, as many other countries currently do. This would be an evidence-based approach that looks to understand the varied experiences of working people across the country and to respond to their needs.

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for robustly repeating the Statement. My eye was drawn to the last phrase, which she read with a flourish: “and this is what the Government are doing today”. What are the Government going to do next week on some of these matters, particularly in relation to the triple lock? I support the questions addressed to the Minister by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie. Most importantly—this was also addressed by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie—if the Government are to secure dignity and security for retirement, at their next review they will need to look not just at average income data but at latter-day morbidity data as well.

The one thing that is missing from the Government’s Statement and response is the fact that the totality of the policy is missing. The Government need to move in a way that releases and uses the £74 billion that we will save by this move in the public policy field between now and 2045-46 to mitigate, as Cridland suggests, some of the transitional protections and to make it easier for those who are reaching retirement but who are less able to work—the disabled, carers and people of that kind. I hope the Minister will be able to say that by the next review these transitional and support questions will be addressed using some of the savings that we are obviously making from this important policy announcement this afternoon.