Social Security (Contributions) (Amendment No. 2) Regulations 2022

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

My Lords, I could not resist coming to this debate. It is akin to social policy archaeology. I very much thank the Minister for her clear, straightforward and unarguable introduction. In fact, she addressed the two points which I was going to raise. She mentioned that this was small—a word she used two or three times—and my first question was, “How small?” She came up with the pretty broad figures of 250 to 1,000. This sounds a bit vague. I have seen another figure elsewhere of 200, so it is certainly of that order. I do not know whether the officials can tell us, but do we simply not know because there are so few that they do not get picked up in the sample survey which is undertaken? As the Minister said, it is relatively unusual.

The second question I had was: why are we getting this too late? It leaves us with the suspicion that someone forgot it and was desperately trying to make it up before the deadline.

My final point is that women who chose the married women’s option probably got a poor deal. I have always been surprised that this has not been pursued. You only need to reflect on the level of attention which was given to the increase in the women’s retirement age issue. In some ways, it could be argued that the women who opted for the married women’s option have had an equally bad deal. If you actually look at their contributions, they have paid as much as someone who is contracted out of the state earnings-related scheme, yet the latter group has been treated very much better. However, we have a Treasury team on this occasion, so maybe this is something I need to take up with the DWP.

With those few remarks, I thank the Minister. I will not be objecting to the regulations.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for introducing the regulations before us this afternoon. I spent a year in the other place shadowing the Department for Work and Pensions, with specific responsibility for women’s pensions at the time. However, it was a source of some disappointment. I spent that year trying to look at ways in which women’s pensions could be improved, if ever the opportunity arose for us to come into government—which then happened in 2010—so we would actually do something to improve the lot of women’s pensions. Therefore, it was a huge blow to me when we kept what a previous Labour Government had decided, with WASPI, that women’s eligibility for state pension would rise to the age of 65 and then 66 in subsequent years without, at the time, giving women 10 years to prepare. That was a matter of regret to me. I would have welcomed if, for once, women were unfairly disadvantaged in this case, if we had not passed—or if we were not to pass—the regulations before us this afternoon. However, that is not my intention.

I think it was our noble friend Lady Morrissey, who is very experienced in financial matters, who flagged this up to us after the Spring Statement in a tweet—which I now cannot find, unfortunately—alerting us to the fact that, as my noble friend set out today, the national insurance threshold is going up to £12,570. The point that our noble friend Lady Morrissey made was that we have to be very careful to ensure that working women are not left out of being able to contribute to their pension and of having their employers contribute at that time. I ask my noble friend to assure us that that, as was so astutely flagged up by our noble friend Lady Morrissey, is not going to be the case.

We are told that this is going to raise a sizeable amount of money—£12 billion, I think—and I assume my noble friend will explain that that is the total amount that the increase in national insurance contributions to which the Government are committed through the health and social care levy will deliver. My noble friend said that the regulations have been produced at speed. We recognise the great burden that has been placed on her department, but can she assure us that there are no errors in this albeit small statutory instrument? Just about every statutory instrument I have debated over the past two to three weeks has contained an error of some sort.

Finally, I ask for confirmation that the rate applying to men in the same bracket will be in the same order—the increase of 1.25% in this regard—or were men already paying a higher rate?

It is my understanding that many working women have lost their jobs through the Covid pandemic, particularly those in retail positions, in shops especially, as opposed to online and others. I would like to pause for a moment and acknowledge what a difficult time those women will be having at the moment, given the pressures if there is only one income coming into a family or if they are in the unfortunate position of being a single mother.

With those few questions, I support the regulations before us.

[Lord Jones (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her cogent exposition and acknowledge the expertise of my noble friend Lord Davies. I will be very brief.

The Explanatory Note refers, in relation to Regulation 2, to

“certain married women and widows”.

What is the estimate of how many married women and widows these regulations impact upon?

My second question is that, since we read in the Explanatory Memorandum that these regulations refer to the United Kingdom, can the numbers of the people affected be broken down to matters concerning England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland?

Finally, the Explanatory Memorandum refers in paragraph 13 to small businesses. Is the Minister able to say what consultation there has been with the business community? For example, was the Federation of Small Businesses involved in the consultation, should it have taken place? If I have asked a question that it is not possible to answer now, the Minister might offer to write.