European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Committee stage & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 16th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson]

No, it just stays as it is.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, on shining a light on this particular difficult policy area. I follow on from the remarks made by my noble friend Lady Altmann, but on a slightly different question, regarding a case study with which I am all too familiar because it concerns my own pension, so I hope that noble Lords will forgive me for raising this.

One area of EU law that has long concerned me is the free movement of pensions and that the pension to which one contributes while living and earning money in another EU member state should be recognised when one returns to the UK. In my case, I remember only too well that I contributed on two occasions, once as an employee and once as a self-employed independent lawyer. On one of those occasions, my contribution was taken and has simply not been recognised. I am sure that this is a common problem; I cannot believe that it applies only to me.

I am in a privileged position as regards my pension, other than the fact that I am told I cannot take my state pension until a slightly later year than I was expecting. When summing up on this small group of amendments, can my noble friend give the House assurance that, where an individual of whatever nationality —British, in my particular case—has contributed to a pension scheme in, for example, Belgium, France, Germany or Denmark and at some future date wishes to return to the United Kingdom, there is a guarantee that their pension will be recognised and will be paid as part of either a private or occupational or state pension at the time of retirement?

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, I had not intended to speak on this amendment: indeed, I did not speak at Second Reading and have concentrated in my own amendments on some fairly technocratic issues. However, my noble friend Lord Teverson—or, rather, the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, who on occasion is my friend—has provoked me. One reason I did not speak at Second Reading is that I now recognise that Brexit is going to happen on 31 January and I am feeling emotionally negative about it. I shall not be joining any celebrations, even if they raise the money for Big Ben to bong.