Baroness Hollis of Heigham
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Pensions Bill
Baroness Hollis of Heigham Excerpts(10 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Freud
My Lords, it might be helpful if I explain the principle behind having protected payments. We recognise that some people who will reach pensionable age under the single tier will already have amounts of additional pension which take them over the full single-tier rate. A key consideration in the design of the transition was that this extra would not be taken away. Revaluing the protected payment, at least by increases in prices, will maintain its purchasing power over time.
Let me deal directly with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, about fairness in relation to expectations. Under the current system, the additional state pension is revalued up to state pension age in line with average earnings, but is then indexed only by prices once in payment. A man retiring in the first 10 years of single tier could expect to spend, on average, 20 years in retirement. In single tier, we have shifted this balance between adjustments before and after pensionable age, and the majority of people receiving protected payments will be better off overall as a result of this shift.
In the current system, only basic state pension is uprated by a minimum of earnings. In the future, the full amount of the single-tier pension would be uprated in this way. So using the 2012-13 White Paper figures, this means that people will see the illustrative £144 of their state pension being uprated each year by earnings, or more—potentially the triple lock—not just £107. People with a protected payment will be relatively close to pension age, so the revaluation will typically be applied only for a few years. So, for example, even someone with an above average protected payment of £20 with 10 years left until they reach retirement would find that revaluation leaves them £4 per week worse off upon reaching pensionable age, but £4 better off 10 years later.
The amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, and the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, would effectively incorporate earnings revaluation of the protected payment into single tier. As this is a cost-neutral package of reforms, we would need to make offsetting changes elsewhere. Given that we expect most people to be better off from the combined revaluation and uprating changes, this would be difficult to justify. To give noble Lords a response to their question about the costs we are talking about, I can tell them that using earnings to revalue the protected payment would have annual costs, which would peak at around £150 in about 2040.
Lord Freud
It would be £150 million per annum—I am not doing too well with my millions and billions. Let me be specific: £150 million per annum at the peak in about 2040.
As regards the question from the noble Lord, Lord Browne, on the review, we will look at how we do that as part of our overall communication strategy, part of which will be about providing people with individualised information. I hope that I have covered all the questions and therefore ask the noble—
“( ) Regulations may provide that those entitled to or subject to a pension credit or a pension debit shall be advised annually of their entitlement.”
Baroness Hollis of Heigham (Lab)
My Lords, we move on to a different subject, which is pension sharing on divorce. This is a very simple, short amendment that raises the issues of divorce that were touched on in previous amendments. When we delivered pension sharing on divorce—many of my noble friends were absolutely vital in that activity in the 1990s—it primarily affected private pensions. We thought that the portion that could be set aside as part of the divorce settlement would be the basis of a useful pension for the divorced spouse—usually the woman. We were also anxious that he and she would build on—or, in his case, perhaps rebuild—their pension shares back up again so that both would face retirement with an adequate pension. However, most divorcing spouses do not seek pension sharing. In some cases, obviously, there may not be much pension to share, particularly if the divorce takes place at a relatively young age—often, sadly, younger women do not always properly value their husbands’ pension, and solicitors, I am afraid, are still pretty sleepy about what is quite a technical issue. Many of those who share pensions do not realise the need for or the possibility of rebuilding their separate pensions. However, out of 120,000 or 125,000 divorces a year, an average of 10,000 divorces involve pension sharing, which means that 8% or 9% of total divorces involve pension sharing of private occupational pensions.
This amendment asks what the implications are for the new state pension. Currently, under existing laws—we clarified this again in a previous discussion on divorcees—upon divorce the woman can substitute the man’s NI record for BSP in lieu of her own at the point of divorce, if his is the higher, and she may also be entitled to half of his additional pension—SERPS or S2P—if the court so decrees as part of the sharing of matrimonial assets.
Under the new regime, she will not be able to substitute his NI contributions for her own, a point that we argued a few amendments back. The only element that can be split or shared, if the court decrees it, is the protected pension; for example, the frozen, additional amount from SERPS and S2P, to which my noble friend referred on a previous amendment. What is more, if he has a shortfall in his NI contributions towards the new state pension—possibly because he has a track record in the public sector, I imagine, with contracting out—some of his additional pension will be brought over to make good his NI record and that transferred slice of protected pension will not then be available for sharing. I am assuming a genderised position here, I am afraid. So she takes the double whammy: not only does she not get an ability to substitute his NI contributions for her own for the basic state pension element, but, equally, if he has an inadequate NI contribution—that may well be the case if he has had a lifetime of contracting out, has never had head space and wishes to make good his shortfall in the new state pension—as I understand it, she will then not be able to access that chunk of his protected and S2P or SERPS pension, which will go across to make good the shortfall.
I would be grateful if the Minister would confirm that I have understood this correctly. If so, the woman has a pretty nasty deal and I think some explanation of the implications is required, particularly for women who have childcare responsibilities and so on and who may not be able to rebuild the additional income, particularly once their youngest child hits 12.
Advising people annually of their pension debit—for example, telling him, as it is usually, but not invariably the man, by how much the pension has reduced following divorce, or with regard to pension credit, the fraction that usually has gone to her of the protected additional pension, if the court has so decreed—would allow each of them to know where they stand to make better decisions about their pension futures and, in particular, that might encourage them into NEST to build or rebuild their total pension prospects.
With this amendment, I am seeking to ask the Minister to ensure that women who may not be aware of, but who could well take advantage of, a share of the additional protected pension have the knowledge that they can do so. They may wish to set that against other matrimonial assets that may otherwise go their way on divorce. I hope, therefore, that the Minister will agree with me that as this is techie and this has now been changed substantively in the Pensions Bill, those women who have been married to someone in the public sector—the reverse could equally well be true in terms of gender—will be a loser a second time because he may well dip into this to make good his NI shortfall. I hope that the Minister will agree with me that we need to encourage people to be aware of the situation and I think that the department needs to take some responsibility for ensuring annual information. I beg to move.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, I put my name to this amendment because I spent a happy half hour with my noble friend trying to fathom out what the legislation was about, on this occasion, without a bottle of gin. The conclusion that my noble friend has just outlined, which I believe to be correct, is that any protected payment could be shared—I think that was confirmed at one of our briefing meetings and indeed in some of the documentation that we have and this parallels the current situation with the additional state pension—but the protected payment cannot, I think, for some of the reasons outlined by my noble friend, be greater than the second state pension accrued at 6 April 2016; it can, however, be smaller. For individuals who grow up entirely within the single-tier system, with just S2P, as we understand it, there would be no basis for sharing the state pension. The noble Lord’s confirmation would be helpful. The particular thrust of the amendment—to make sure that people are routinely informed—seems entirely reasonable.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
The Minister also gave those figures last time, when we debated the amendment on divorcees and the substitution issue. The 100,000 requests and the 150 orders are happening in terms of the protected or state second pension, or SERPS, now. Of course, it is only a tiny fraction of the occupational pensions which are usually the more valuable asset and make up the other 9,900 or so requests.
Perhaps I should have asked this before, and I do not mean to catch the Minister on the hop, but what is the financial distribution of the 150 within the 10,000? Are those 150 simply the largest, or are they associated with people who are tenants in rented accommodation, where there is therefore no unoccupied house to be set off in lieu, or what? What does the Minister know about them?
Lord Freud
Rather than going into the sub-detail of what is already a very detailed point, I ought to commit to getting whatever information we can find and supplying that by letter to the noble Baroness.
When pension sharing disappears, most men and women will be able to build up entitlement to a simple contributory pension above the basic level of means-tested support. This is the most effective way of ensuring that savers have a decent underpin which stays with them however their family circumstances change. More than 80% of those reaching state pension age by the mid-2030s will get the full single tier, a figure with which I know the Committee is familiar. The courts will still be able to take account of private pension provision in the divorce settlement. The expectation is that the vast majority of people will be able to build a single-tier pension in their own right.
If someone is the beneficiary of a pension share order they receive a pension credit. The person the order is made against is subject to a corresponding debit. State pension credits are normally awarded and debits applied from state pension age. If the order is made after state pension age, the payment is increased or decreased at that point. As under the current system, single-tier pensioners who have a state pension debit or credit will be informed of the weekly addition or deduction when the court order is implemented. Individuals will be able to ask for statements of their state pension, but the pension credits or debits would be consolidated within the individual’s single-tier payment or protected payment and so not identified as credits or debits. As now, these elements could be identified on request but I am informed by the department’s pension sharing administrators that no one can recall ever receiving such a request.
On communications, the question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Browne, our statements will give individuals an up-to-date picture of their single-tier state pension position, which includes their foundation amount, and explain how this may change with further national insurance qualifying years through work or credits. The foundation amount included in statements will take into account any pension share debits or credits, as I have said.
Let me make it clear that state pension sharing on divorce affects relatively few people. As I said, in 2012-13 the department implemented only around 150 sharing orders. The changes to the computer system necessary to generate such automatic annual statements would therefore be disproportionately costly to provide this group with information it can in any case request.
Finally, on the devolution issue raised by the noble Lord, Lord Browne, I can confirm that this does not require a legislative consent Motion from the Scottish Government.
I hope that I have been able to go some way in reassuring the noble Baroness that, while there is low demand for this information, it is available if requested. I hope that on that basis, she will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friends Lord McKenzie and Lord Browne for their contributions and also to the Minister for a helpful reply. However, I am still not secure on a couple of points he raised, if he would be so kind as to elaborate on them. He said that the recipients—I presume they would be almost all women; the Minister has not challenged me on this so I assume that it is correct—get information when the court order is implemented. Does that mean at the point of divorce or at the point of payment? What does “implementation” mean here? It could be the legal point of when the court has finished with it or the practical effect of when it is actually paid. I am not quite clear.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
So it is at the point of divorce. Thereafter, from what the Minister has said, if they wish to see what has happened to that payment they can make an inquiry but the Minister says they never have so far.
Lord Freud
That is exactly right. We have the information and people who want to double check it can ask, although they seem to be satisfied with the level of information they had at the outset.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
If it is 150 people, how much does an inquiry cost to handle?
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
If we are talking about 150 people, how much does it cost to respond to each inquiry?
Lord Freud
My Lords, as I said, in practice we have not had an inquiry. We have to manage 150 sharing orders. Again, I am not sure of the cost of that and how easy it is to extract it. If I can do it, I will include it in a letter that I have committed to send.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
I am grateful for the Minister’s promise of further information and, on that basis, I am happy to withdraw the amendment.
“( ) If a person’s entitlement under this Part to a state pension has been deferred for a period, that person may receive it as a lump sum, as specified in regulations.”
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, I would just point out that the clock seems to have frozen on the display.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
It does not matter. I am grateful for the additional statistics on this issue provided by the Bill team. That has been very helpful. In 2004, the previous Administration sought to encourage people to stay in work longer by offering attractive arrangements if they deferred taking the state pension for several years, or at least for more than one year. About 9% of pensioners did so—1.2 million people—three-quarters of them women, usually because they were younger than their husbands and worked longer hours, particularly given that their retirement age was earlier than the husbands’ and this way they could retire together. These arrangements had several advantages: they kept people in work for longer; they allowed husband and wife to synchronise their retirement if they wished; and they offered them a higher pension income once retired, with interest rates—until this Bill comes into effect—of 10.4% per annum, or to roll it up into a lump sum, where instead they received the basic rate plus 2%.
The vast majority of the 1.2 million pensioners who deferred their state pension for more than a year chose income. Some 60,000 preferred to take a lump sum. I do not know how many of those are women, but my hunch would be, again, a very high proportion. If by any chance the Minister had that figure, that would be helpful. Some 60,000 preferred to take the lump sum, which on average was £13,700 for GB residents—a considerable sum.
The Bill proposes to remove the option of a lump sum so that in future, if you defer taking your state pension, all that you can do is add to your income. Why? I have to say that the arguments offered by the Minister in the other place did not persuade me. He said that, first, it was a less financially attractive proposition to take the lump sum than to take the money as increased pension, even at the proposed new rate for income deferral of 5.2%. Secondly, drawing their pension rather than deferring it and then putting it into a building society account would give much the same return. And, thirdly, by removing choice, you are giving people something more valuable—that magic word “simplicity”, as though a lump sum payment is really hard to understand.
I think this approach is incomplete at best and, in policy terms, wrong in terms of what we know about pensions income and capital. Why would one want a lump sum when the alternative of income is, in terms of return, more financially attractive, which I accept that it is? The answer, it seems to me, is simple. It may be the only opportunity a couple or an individual—but more likely a couple—get of acquiring any capital before they go into full-time retirement. If they have an occupational pension, they are likely to get perhaps the capital of a 25% tax free lump sum. If they are reliant only on the state pension, they have no such access to capital at all. The problem for pensioners now, and future pensioners, as they face their retirement, is not so much lack of income, thanks not only to what the previous Administration did but what the current Administration are doing, on which I congratulate them—it is above all lack of capital. I do not think that the Government or the Minister in the other place gave the impression of understanding that that is the problem coming up in the lift.
Let us remind ourselves that in 1997 the percentage of pensioners below 60% of median income was 41%. As of now, it is about 14%. Pensioners, as we know, have rightly done relatively well in terms of income. As my noble friend teased earlier on, we now know that the current Administration propose to continue this until 2020, should they return to office. As a result, pensions have already risen three times faster than wages and pensioners will continue to do well. The big problem for pensioners is not income but the lack of savings or capital. That has, if anything, worsened over the past decade: 21% of all pensioners have no savings at all; 37% have less than £3,000—not enough to pay for one funeral, let alone two—and 50% of all pensioners have less than £8,000, which would just about cover two funerals with a bit left over for the high tea. For those able to defer, bringing in an extra £13,000 to £14,000 of capital is magic. It transforms their situation. I repeat that the struggle for pensioners is not so much lack of income, which was how it was treated down the other end, as lack of capital, and the Government are going to close down one of the easiest and simplest routes to acquiring it.
A couple, for example, could make the entirely sensible judgment that one of them—possibly him—adds their deferred pension to their pension income and, as a result, his state pension increases. The other—it may well be her—brings in the lump sum to build some savings for a rainy day or replace the car, build the conservatory, help their grandson with tuition fees at university, and, above all, in time, to help pay for social care and eventually, perhaps, to fund funerals. Yes, they could save that sum out of income instead, as Steve Webb suggested. However, as with auto-enrolment, where we are structuring choice, ring-fencing it into a deferred lump sum may be the most helpful way to build those savings. To assume that people will voluntarily put their income aside into a building society is the exact opposite of what we are doing with auto-enrolment, where we know that we need the nudge theory of inertia to get people to save, not to leave it to a voluntary choice. They can, of course, do as the Minister suggests, but if that is the case, and if we can rely on them to do that, frankly, we do not need auto-enrolment at all because people will look after themselves with private occupational provision. But, of course, we know that they do not and that is why we are introducing auto-enrolment. The same cast of mind applies to deferred state pensions, I suggest.
In my experience, pensioners seldom spend their full income. They cope. Whatever the level of pension—whether it is £60, £80 or £100—pensioners spend £1 or so underneath their ceiling. Indeed, as a result of past and current government policies, including the triple lock, the income from the new state pension for future pensioners will be increasingly adequate. However, what pensioners are badly short of is capital, and that capital, as a proportion of their future, is reducing. They have little or no reserve cushion and the Government are taking away the easiest way in which pensioners can choose to build that up.
Why are we taking this choice away? No one has to opt for a lump sum but, as long as it is an informed choice, it may be absolutely the right choice for them. Government should not second-guess them and deny them a choice. It is very silly. Contrary to what the Government believe, we do not know what is best for all pensioners in all situations and we should allow them to make the decisions they want and which work best for them. In moving this amendment, I hope very much that the Government reconsider their position on this as they are failing to see the issues that are going to affect pensioners in the future, particularly as we move into the field of social care and the need for individual pensioners to pay for it. I beg to move.
The Lord Bishop of Chester
My Lords, I support this amendment. The background seems to be one of a general lack of provision for pensions for older people in the future. There is a major shortage of pension savings, and my impression is that that is getting worse rather than better, for all sorts of reasons. My experience of young people—I use the word “young” to include people in their 30s—is that they do not think about pensions as much as they should. Anything we can do to encourage people to take a long-term view and think for the future must be a good thing. The principle, therefore, of deferring taking the state pension until you really need it seems a healthy principle to encourage in our circumstances. My anxiety is that, in the future, a lot of people are going to be very short of money when they are older. It seems fundamentally right to do anything we can to encourage that culture of not taking the pension until you need to.
If you are going to encourage people to do that, maintaining the flexibility so that they can either take additional income when they do take their pension, or a lump sum in lieu of the money they save, seems to be a sensible inducement. If you just look on it as an issue of encouraging savings, one of the lessons of the last decade or so is that we need to encourage the thought of saving in our culture. It may be just as easy to take the pension and put it into a building society account or whatever but why not offer the option of the Government allowing the lump sum to be taken? Another reason for supporting the amendment is the principle that if it ain’t broke, why do you need to change it? What is wrong with the current arrangements that means that we want to change them?
My third reason for supporting this is that, in principle, I think there should be parity with how we relate the state provision of pensions to private provision, which normally allows the option of taking part of the pension as a lump sum. That is an important principle of flexibility and, indeed, defined benefit schemes now typically make that option more available than they used to. There seems to be a simplicity—to use the Minister’s point—in treating state pension and private pension arrangements in broadly similar ways.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
Why did the Minister in another place, Steve Webb, argue that one of the reasons for doing this was because the deferred pension, even at the proposed rate of 5.4%, was financially much more attractive to people and a much better buy, and therefore he was helping to protect would-be savers from themselves? If it is a better buy for the individuals receiving it, why does it therefore cost the Government money to keep the less expensive option going?
Lord Freud
It is a timing issue, of course, because you take the money in earlier. That is where the costs to the Government come from.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
If the Government were making that monetary saving, they would have to show us that that would be a one-off saving and not a continuous saving. If those people then took instead the increased income, the cost of that would soar by comparison because the £62,000 or £63,000 would presumably move across. In order to save some upfront costs of the lump sum, the Minister is committing himself to an increased continued income on the deferred income option.
Lord Freud
I do not have the crossover point figure. I could look into that. Clearly, it would be different depending on the system. I can offer to discuss this with some graphics, which I suspect are essential, in a briefing session before Report.
Lord Freud
Yes. The reason is that that is the equivalent of the private pension provision, which is a purchase. We are drawing a distinction here between public provision and private provision. With the pulling into a single tier, that is where the line is drawn between the two. As private pensions offer lump sums, that is where we would expect people to be taking them.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
That cannot be reasonable, can it? After all, the new state pension combines the element, including the state second pension, which was bought up by people in lieu of and as an alternative to or an equivalent of an occupational pension and contracting out into it.
Lord Freud
Deferrals of lumps sums are both complex to understand and cumbersome to administer.
Lord Freud
That complexity is illustrated in the DWP information booklet which provides guidance on deferrals. It runs to 60 pages and then recommends after all that that people get independent advice before making their decision. Even so, given the factors and variables, there is no guarantee that such advice would be forthcoming.
Reverting back to the class 3A distinction, that is clearly being directed at existing pensioners who currently get existing increments as a lump sum, so they are within the old system. It is being directed at people who are in the existing system rather than those in the single-tier system.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
But that means, does it not, that the Minister is giving the option of a deferred lump sum within the state system, even though, a couple of minutes ago, he said that was exactly what he was not going to do because he wished to maintain the boundaries between state and private provision?
Lord Freud
Yes, that is the distinction between the existing system, where there is a lump sum, and the post-2016 single-tier system, where it is proposed that there should not be a lump sum. That is where the consistency lies.
The simplified arrangements under Clause 17 will mean that people will be able to work out both the level of increase they will build up as a result of deferring their state pension and the potential effect this will have on their future taxable income. People will be able to make their own arrangements to save their single-tier pension if they wish and build up savings in that way. This will give them a choice over what and when to save, in a form that meets their needs. We do not think that the state should continue to provide the lump-sum option as an alternative to savings in the long term.
However, there is a way of building up some capital, if people take 12 months of arrears of pension straightaway if they claim after state pension age. That is worth around £7,500 for someone with a full single-tier pension in 2013-14 terms. Our intention is to bring forward regulations for the single tier that will replicate the existing arrangements.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
Could the Minister help us further? Is he saying that at the end of the first year post the conventional state retirement age you can choose to take your deferred pension as a lump sum for one year only but not for a second year? Is that what the Minister is now telling us?
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
Well, why? Why is it okay to do it for one year and not for two?
Lord Freud
That is the standard position whereby, if you are in arrears for a year, you can take the provision at the end of that year and that is treated as arrears of pension rather than a lump sum. Some noble Lords are very concerned about the issue of the nest egg. If we drop the distinction between arrears and lump sum, there is a nest egg opportunity in that £7,500, which may go a long way to satisfy the concerns that have been expressed with some vigour this afternoon.
Baroness Drake (Lab)
I think that the Minister is right not to give advice as to whether or not it suits an individual to defer. It depends on their personal circumstances.
Lord Freud
I must thank the noble Baroness for keeping me out of jail. Many a seminar that I have been to would have told me that. It is a matter for people to judge.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, I am extremely grateful to all Members of the Committee. I am sorry we did not hear from the Lib Dem Benches as we would then have had a full hand. I am grateful particularly to my noble friend Lady Dean, to my noble friend Lord Hutton for raising the debate in the way he did and to the right reverend Prelate for his persistent questioning. Both my noble friends continue to interrogate the Minister, which is really valuable. The right reverend Prelate said, “If it is not broken, why fix it?”. I have seen no evidence at all, apart from the Minister saying this is not such a good buy for individuals as taking it as income, that the system is broken. The Government are relying on having the upfront savings rather than the longer-term costs. That is not, in my view, a prudent way of handling finance.
My noble friend Lord Hutton, along with the right reverend Prelate, stressed that it is no use saying that we have to go for simplicity and thereby remove choice, if choice would be part of the attraction for people to save and defer taking their state pension. We do not have hard evidence on this, but we know from everything that is coming through from auto-enrolment and the pilots—including under my noble friend—that the nudge theory of encouraging people to stay opted-in and having them opt out rather than choosing to opt in was transformative. I remember when we got the figures from the Newcastle brewery, where something like 43% of its staff opted in to a pension. When it went to opting out, that went up to over 90%, and the only people opting out were students working in the summer vac. It transformed the pension regime in that brewery. It relied on nudge and inertia and ensuring that people could save in the way that was least problematic for them. Unless the Minister can show noble Lords—certainly me—that denying people the right to turn a deferred state pension into a lump sum will not only not have a negative effect on their savings but actually increase their savings, he is storing up problems for himself in the future.
Research last month by the LSE found that 483,000 people—nearly half a million, almost all of them pensioners—had either lost their home care support or were no longer eligible to claim it, as compared with 2008. Now, that home care will need to be funded by savings; it will not come out of income. People are losing the capacity to pay for home care week in, week out, as the cuts bite. My noble friend Lord McKenzie—
Lord Freud
To go back to the point of how people use their lump sum, it is towards the latter end of the pension drawdown period that you are going to need to pay for care. It is exactly at that time that any lump sum taken earlier will have been used up on other expenditure. That is why this is such a difficult area. A lump sum taken at 70 is probably not going to be around when social care is needed in the late 70s, for instance.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
How does the Minister know? I represented one of the poorest wards in the city of Norwich and the pensioners I know were desperate to have a lump sum. Very often, they cast it in terms of paying for funerals, because that was a working-class, respectable-culture consideration. They desperately wanted savings and they did not have them. They managed weekly. Sometimes their daughters might help out with the odd bit of groceries when they did their shopping but the notion is that you can read across from people in the private sector having a car or holiday.
The same arguments apply to equity release. We know the research on equity release. We know that if people take it very early they may spend it on white-good replacement or on trying to keep up a standard of living but we also know that, as they grow older, they tend to take it for personal care. If, as the Minister suggests, he believes that it is going to be blown, why, for example, are his Government continuing to keep a tax-free lump sum? By his own argument, we should scrap that, on the grounds that the Government know better than the taxpayer how to spend the taxpayer’s money. We should instead roll it into the basic pension that people have from their occupational fund because we know that only between 11% and 13% of pensioners use their tax-free lump sum to increase their pension; instead they use it to give themselves savings. We know that from the private sector. We have no reason to think that it would not apply here. I am amazed that the Minister seems to think that there are different cultures between those who have private, occupational pensions and those who do not. As a result, we are making it harder and harder for the poorest to have what each and every one of us wants—a modest cushion against, as my noble friend Lord Browne said, the rainy day. The Minister, the Government or the department seem to be pulling that possibility away from people for no good reason.
My noble friend Lord McKenzie asked about health impairment. The Minister did not answer that question at all. Under the new scheme, a spouse would not be able to inherit a deferred income that was accumulated by their deceased spouse but they could inherit the lump sum. That, too, is unfair. The couple have made a decision together that that is what they will do. They can take it in one form, but not in the other. Why? That is just the point at which the spouse may wish to have the cushion of a lump sum and is not able to inherit it. It is unfair.
The Minister may also choose to look at my other consideration, which has not been discussed today. Perhaps I should have raised it in my opening speech. Once you hit retirement age, if you carry on working, you are not entitled to continue to build up national insurance contributions. I think you should be able to do so, with employer input, although maybe that is a debate for another day.
Drawing on the report from Scottish Widows, my noble friend Lord Browne emphasised how many people retire with debt, including mortgages. He is absolutely right. Taking a lump sum that actually pays off that debt, which it would take years to accumulate through a modestly increased pension, may be the most prudent thing that those people can do, because that debt may require a much higher rate of payments to keep it covered than any other income that they could get. It could be through a loan company, for example, where they were paying APRs of 300%, 500% or 1,000%. A lump sum would pay that off and therefore increase the robustness of the rest of their income. That is what you can do with capital—you cannot do it with income. Again, I hope that the Minister will reflect on this. I know that he is concerned about people’s indebtedness as they go into retirement, and by freeing them from a burden of debt he would actually improve their financial ability to cope once in retirement.
The Minister argued about the cost of the lump sum. He seemed to suggest that taking away the lump sum would produce 85% of the £800 million savings. I am completely baffled by that figure. What he is doing is removing the up-front cost of paying a lump sum while paying out over a period of time at a higher cost to the Government. There is therefore a break-even point, five or maybe seven years down the line, at which the Government incur additional cost—not reduced cost—by getting rid of the lump sum. Obviously it is less financially attractive; a return of 2.5% or 3% is less attractive than the return of 5.4% that he is proposing. In that case, how can the Government say simultaneously that they are going to save money by getting rid of the lump sum and that if a person takes it as deferred income instead they will be better off? He is going to have to do some nimble footwork—I am sure he will be able to do so—to explain to the noble Lords how he gets to those savings.
The Minister helpfully said that people could already take a deferred pension at the end of one year as arrears of £7,500. If he were able to say that two years could be taken as arrears, I would be satisfied because that would give people the cushion that they would need, or some such flexibility. I take heart from the fact that he has responded, as I was confident that he would, to the range of feeling around the Room that this is simply the wrong way to go. All parties have genuinely attended to pensioners’ incomes, and the present Government—I include both members of the coalition—as well as the previous one are entitled to claim high credit for that. It is a very good achievement for us to have taken pensioners out of income poverty. However, we are sending them into retirement with increased capital poverty. If we wish, we have the option of allowing them to do something about that. To say that we are removing the choice to address capital poverty in the name of simplicity is, frankly, Orwellian, and normally I would expect better from the Minister than that.
Under the circumstances, I will withdraw the amendment and hope that the Minister will be able to find a way through, perhaps around the hook of an assumption that this is actually paid as arrears. I thank again all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, I had not expected to come in on this, but I am intrigued by the concept of mutual advantage to both countries. I have never been in a position to support—I use those words appropriately, I hope—the proposition that we have reciprocal relationships. That is primarily because the main beneficiaries are the UK citizens who have gone to the major Anglo-Saxon countries: Canada, above all Australia, to a lesser extent New Zealand, and South Africa. Obviously, there is free movement within the European Union. I am sure that the Minister will correct me if my stats are wrong, but when I last looked at this the reason why it was so costly—the figure used to be £400 million but I understand that it has gone up to over £600 million—was that four times or more British citizens go to those countries than come back to the UK. Therefore, I cannot see how it can be mutually advantageous if the UK is committed to spending four times as much pro rata as, say, the Australian Government—if those are the appropriate figures—in reverse. If it is the case, as I believe it to be, that so many more people are emigrating to those countries than come back to the UK to retire, essentially it is a one-way bid. That is why so many of us are concerned about this proposition. In Australia, particularly—I have less knowledge of New Zealand—there is income-related support which amplifies any state pension that someone may have brought with them from the UK. It is obviously means-tested but it ensures that those UK citizens have at least a minimally adequate income, so we are not talking about dire poverty, particularly as many of these people have retired and gone to join their families.
It is also the case—this was argued all the way up to the European courts, which found in favour of the British Government—that increments to the British pension in the UK were granted in the light of wider considerations of social policy, and to deal specifically with increased costs of living reflected in increased earnings within the UK. If you were to track the relevant figures—for example, in South Africa—you may well find that because of changes in currency rates, employment rates or wages, the British pension may well be worth more in the home country than in the country to which the retired person has moved as it was designed to deal with the UK situation. For many years when the state pension was first introduced there were no automatic increases at all. They were introduced as a regular item under the Wilson Government. Then, fairly quickly, Mrs Thatcher, after four years, separated the provision from earnings and attached it to prices, but only since then have we assumed regular increments, which is why the problem possibly did not arise in those early reciprocal arrangements. The pension was designed to deal with the British cost of living and not with costs abroad.
As long as people emigrating or retiring to those countries where there is no reciprocal arrangement have full information about the financial implications of their choice—that is key—then they make that decision with their eyes open to what it means. Given that the Government are seeking to impose cuts on British pensions here for widows, and cuts in universal credit, income for disabled people and so on, I could not support seeing £600 million go to people who have made an informed decision to leave this country. If we were to have reciprocal arrangements, it would result in cuts to other very beleaguered services.
Lord Browne of Ladyton
My Lords, I wish to speak to Amendment 33A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord German, and to support Amendment 33B, which stands in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Sherlock. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord German, for his explanation of the motivation behind his amendment. We had the benefit of his contribution to the Second Reading debate, to which I listened carefully, in which he explained the provisions of this amendment and posed questions to the Minister on them.
However, when I looked at the mechanism he had chosen, I was slightly concerned that he was seeking to empower the Government to act in breach of the EU and international law in the form of bilateral treaties, and that he felt so strongly on the issue that anything which budged the status quo was worth arguing for. However, I understand his motivation and am intrigued by the questions that he asked, and those which my noble friend Lady Hollis asked, about how one can—specifically in regard to Canada—come to some mutually beneficial agreement in these circumstances. He is right to be intrigued by that. These are the words of the Canadian Minister and, if that is the offer that they are making, it would be interesting to know the extent to which the Government know the detail of that offer and whether an argument can be made for it.
However, I move on from that, as I wait in anticipation of the Minister’s response to these interesting questions, to Amendment 33B. Before I come to the argument for it I should say, as was explained by my honourable friend Gregg McClymont in the debate on this issue in the Commons, that we are not hostile to the government position of continuing not to uprate pensions in countries where they are not currently uprated. It would be extremely difficult to explain why we had not done this in years of government if we were now to take this position. We have the benefit of the Government’s estimate of the cost of doing so.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
I am intrigued by the notion of it being mutually advantageous. The noble Lord raised this—rightly and in an interesting way—at Second Reading and again today and has been understandably careful about not seeking to load a substantial increase on the pensions bill for people who no longer live in this country. When he talks about mutual advantage, he must have thought about what that might look like. What suggestions has he got? What propositions have been made? I cannot understand why it is about anything other than money, to the advantage of people who have left the country. Can he give us some indication of how his thinking might go in that way because I am sure it would be of considerable interest to the Committee?
Lord German
Perhaps I could put inverted commas around the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, and refer them, and the precise nature of this debate, to the Minister in Canada. I do not know what was in their mind. My noble friend the Minister here cannot know either, because of course they closed the door to any discussion with the officials from the Canadian Government. However, we need a discussion about this issue. It may well be that it is not with DWP Ministers; it may need to be at some other level.
I do not know the answer to the noble Baroness’s question. All I know is that the Canadian Government believe that they have a mutually beneficial offer to make. That seems to me to be worthy of further discussion; no more than that. I make it clear that I am very much in favour of managing expectations here. The amendment does not call for expenditure at the levels which we have seen before us, and I do not wish to see a reduction in social security expenditure for people currently living in this country as a result. However, when an offer of that sort is made, it is worthy of examination. If there were to be the sorts of things that would make it mutually beneficial, and the Canadian Government believe it to be mutually beneficial to adopt a procedure for Canadian UK pensioners, then it is worth at least finding out what is on the table. If it were to be a successful offer, that of course quite clearly sends the message to other Governments that they can come up with a deal that actually meets the expectations of this Government and the British people.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord again; he is being very tolerant, for which I am grateful. Again, I am relying on my memory, which is probably faulty, but something in the order of 85% of overseas pensioners outside the EU are in the four major Anglo-Saxon countries. However, the countries in which most of us would recognise that there are anomalies are not so much the big four Anglo-Saxon countries, which have decent social security systems for poverty relief as a safety net and so on. This is about the mixed history of some Caribbean islands, which came in under the net, before 1979, for protection of overseas pensioners, while others did not. Once we started inflating pensions by the cost of living—I am not sure that this was accidental—bilateral relations disappeared at that point because they started to reflect the British cost of living. Those countries are so poor that they are looking for a form of aid in the form of pensions. How would the noble Lord justify coming to a mutually advantageous deal with a relatively wealthy country like Canada while, because an appropriately mutually advantageous offer could not be made with Caribbean islands, that opportunity would be refused to some of the poorer countries?
Lord German
We have gone a very long way from what might be the first step in this direction. We have not yet been able to answer that first question: what do any Government have ready to offer?
Incidentally, the Government’s figures are quite clear. They say that 85% of all those with frozen pensions live in Canada, New Zealand and Australia. Those are huge numbers. One of the interesting things when you look at these issues, as noble Lords will know, is that other countries produce information, which comes to you in emails. The noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, asked earlier about Australian pensions. I understand that they are means-tested, but only by 50% of total income over the threshold, so if the UK pension was increased by £20 then the Australian pension would be reduced by the equivalent of £10. As we know, it is not always as clear as we suggest.
My intention in tabling the amendment was simply to be able to examine the issue in a different way, and only then to consider it further. However, it seems to me that we need an answer. I have not yet heard the answer, although of course I could not expect to hear an answer from my noble friend since the discussion with officials was not allowed to take place. However, I encourage that discussion to take place, even if it is over a cup of tea with another group of officials at some stage. In a spirit of hope that this will happen, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Freud
The purpose is that we want to retain the ability to avoid cash losers. That is the purpose of this particular power. In relation to the potential impact of the removal of savings credit on passporting, I remind noble Lords that, while pension credit acts as a passport to a number of other benefits, most are linked to receipt of the guarantee credit rather than the savings credit. Housing benefit and council tax reductions are not limited to pension credit recipients; they can already be claimed on low-income grounds regardless of receipt of pension credit, and this will continue. Furthermore, there is a higher applicable amount for pensioners over 65 in housing benefit, essentially to ensure that the savings credit is not itself means-tested away for those paying rent. This higher applicable amount applies to all pensioners over 65, not just those receiving savings credit. This provision will continue for at least as long as housing benefit remains. As noble Lords may be aware, we recently announced that there are no plans to change housing benefit for pensioners until at least 2017-18.
Unlike housing support, entitlement to social fund payments, including cold weather payments, requires receipt of pension credit, and this can include people getting savings credit only. I assure the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, that we have made no assumption of savings from cold weather payments as a result of the changes in this Bill.
On the question of figures—
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
Is the noble Lord saying that cold weather payments will continue as is?
Lord Freud
No, it means that we do not expect that we will be paying out less in cold weather payments because of these changes.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
Then I am even more confused. If we are denying a category of people the right to cold weather payments, how is it that the bill is remaining the same?