Oral Answers to Questions

Harriett Baldwin Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Steve Webb]

The hon. Lady has raised an important point about the financial support available to the group concerned. In fact, about 70% of them are in paid employment, and that section of the labour market is doing better than other sections. We reckon that three in five of these women have built up occupational pension rights on which they will be able to draw before they reach the age of 66, and both ESA and JSA will be available in certain circumstances. A combination of sources of income will be available to them.

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

In his statement last Wednesday, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor said that he was hoping for

“a new, more automatic mechanism for future increases in the state pension age based on regular, independent reviews of longevity.”—[Official Report, 23 March 2011; Vol. 525, c. 961.]

With longevity increasing by about a year every year, that brought to my mind the vision of a cohort of people who might never actually reach pension age. Will the Pensions Minister comment?

[Steve Webb]

Tempted though I am, we do not propose to abolish retirement. What my right hon. Friend the Chancellor said was that we need to take account in a more automatic way. I do not recognise the improvement of one year per year, although it is rising very rapidly. The key is that we need to do things with proper notice and make sure people have successful longer working lives and therefore build up bigger pensions when they come to draw them.