Pensions Bill [Lords]

Jonathan Evans Excerpts

Monday 20th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I guarantee the hon. Gentleman that I will discuss the issue, and I hope he will still be here then—no doubt we can have an exchange on it.

The Bill addresses important issues, not just that of pension age. It is key that we get this generation saving and make sure that savings count and are not frittered away by the means test. We also have to find a way of sharing the cost of the retirement system between generations, ensuring a fair settlement for both young and old. I know that people think that retirement is all about just the group who are retiring, but as we look down the road ahead it is also very much about the generation who will have to pick up many of the bills. These are not easy decisions, but I want to make sure that the House recognises that we have to take decisions about the next generation; otherwise we will be guilty of falling into the same slot as the previous Government, who left us with the deficit.

Let me address auto-enrolment. The Bill takes forward the previous Government’s plans for automatic enrolment, which were debated and widely supported during the passing of the Pensions Act 2008 and to which we remain absolutely committed. The Bill refines some of the policy’s parameters to ensure that automatic enrolment works as effectively as possible, following the recommendations of the “Making automatic enrolment work” review that we initiated. First, we propose an increase in the earnings threshold at which automatic enrolment is triggered from an expected £5,800 under the previous Government’s plans—I say expected because the figure involves assumptions about changes as a result of inflation—to £7,475. That will protect those on the lowest incomes and will reduce the risk of the lowest earners saving for a pension when they do not earn enough to make it worth making all that effort and sacrifice. It will also simplify administration for employers by aligning the earnings trigger with the existing personal tax threshold.

[Jonathan Evans (Cardiff North) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend refers specifically to the linkage of the personal allowance but, as he knows, our Government are committed to increasing the allowance significantly. What impact is that likely to have on auto-enrolment?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

We are committed to reviewing that year by year, so I can assure my hon. Friend that we will constantly take it forward and not leave it static.

Introducing a waiting period of up to three months, which has been widely discussed and debated, will ease the regulatory burden on employers. We had many representations from employers. In view of the present circumstances and the difficulties that many of them face, it is important to recognise the key considerations that we had to take into account in framing the Bill.

Workers will retain the right to opt into the system if they consider it to be in their best interests to do so. That is important. Although we are allowing a let-out, if workers want to enter they will retain the right to do so. The Bill also amends legislation to enable employers with defined contribution schemes to self-certify their scheme. That is simple and straightforward. It makes it easier for employers with an existing scheme to try to align that. If it is aligned closely enough, the scheme can go ahead, saving employers the complication of having to change and engage in a new scheme. That is fairer and more reasonable.

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[Jonathan Evans (Cardiff North) (Con)]

Let me begin by drawing the House’s attention to the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, which shows my connections with the pensions industry over many years.

As you know, Mr Deputy Speaker, you and I entered the House on the same day back in 1992, but this is the first opportunity that I have had to observe the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne) in full flow. I have often wondered how he managed to reach such an elevated position in Government in such a short time, and having listened to him today, I am still wondering.

I was staggered by the right hon. Gentleman’s opening remarks, in which he said how proud he was of his Government’s record on pensions. Is he utterly unaware of the destruction of the private pensions system in our country wrought by his former leader, and of the revelation that when the Labour Government were elected in 1997, the National Association of Pension Funds said that the end of dividend tax credit would mean the end of at least half the defined benefit schemes in our country? In fact, we have seen much more than that brought about as a direct result of the Labour Government’s policy. I believe that it was forecast to cost our private pensions system at least £50 billion. Is the right hon. Gentleman proud of the fact that under a Labour Government a record number of pension funds closed to new business? Is he proud of the record of a Labour Government who gave pensioners an increase of merely pence? I can tell him that people in my constituency remember that event.

[Sheila Gilmore]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Jonathan Evans]

I will in a moment—unlike the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill, who was not prepared to hear these remarks from me.

Two years ago, the state earnings-related pension scheme was not increased by even one penny by the Labour Government. That is an illustration of how much we can trust Labour on pensions.

[Sheila Gilmore]

Government Members constantly raise the subject of the 75p pension increase. It is not necessarily a choice that I would have made, but it is the choice that the Labour Government made at the time. The hon. Gentleman should bear in mind that that increase was introduced during the first couple of years of that Labour Government, when they were following Conservative financial rules.

[Jonathan Evans]

I am trying to get my head around the idea of Tony Blair standing at the Dispatch Box and taking his instructions from my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Mr Hague). It is a little bit too difficult for me to accept.

I think it important for us to recognise real concerns that have been raised throughout the country. All Members of Parliament have received many letters, e-mails and other representations relating specifically to the proposals to increase the age at which the state pension kicks in and the impact that that will have on a number of people, not least women.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

Before my hon. Friend moved on from his powerful previous argument, I wish he had remembered to add to his list the discreditable way Equitable Life victims were treated. Their pension shortfall dilemmas were kicked into the long grass for many years.

[Jonathan Evans]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that observation, but I hope she will forgive me for not going down that road. If we were to do so there would be no time left for the debate in hand, because we would all be pointing out the many Labour shortcomings on pensions.

There has been a lot of misinformation about the proposals we are debating. I listened to a staggering example of that at 9.30 this morning on Sky News, when the otherwise excellent Charlotte Hawkins said that today we were going to vote on a proposal to make women work a further five years before receiving their pensions. It amazed me that that could be said; I am sure it must have been a slip of the tongue. Later, I opened my e-mails and came across a letter from a lady who will be required to wait a further two months as a result of these proposals, but who stated that she believed she will have to wait a further six years. That highlights the exaggerations, and in some cases the dishonesty, in the campaign that has been waged against the proposals.

[Harriett Baldwin]

Did my hon. Friend also see last week’s Age UK survey, which found that 20% of the women affected by the previous Government’s changes to equalise the pension ages of men and women had not realised what was going to happen to them?

[Jonathan Evans]

Indeed, and one of the difficulties in this regard is to do with the first change, to which almost all e-mails refer: that women were getting the pension at 60 and that that is now gradually being moved up to 65. The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill referred to his family being affected. Well, my wife is affected by these changes, but we in this House were aware of them because we legislated for them in 1995. [Interruption.] Yes, we have known about them, but we have known about them only here, because there has not been much dissemination of this information outside the Chamber to the rest of the public. [Interruption.] I am grateful to the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) for indicating that that is so. The idea that the retirement age might then be moved up to 66 is not new. It was debated in this House back in 2007, and legislation was put on to the statute book. What we are doing now is moving the first of these dates forward, and in my view that is necessary. It is perfectly clear that a significant saving will be made.

The Secretary of State made a typically sensitive address, which was well received on both sides of the House, and not only because he said he was prepared to listen. I am staggered that any Minister who says they are prepared to listen to an argument is treated with contempt from the Opposition Benches. [Interruption.] Absolutely: it is an indication of what Labour Members were used to when their party was in government. I commend my right hon. Friend on his approach, however, and I am impressed by the sum of £30 billion.

The Opposition propose that we should not take these steps for a while, and that we should instead return to a 2020 or 2022 timetable. The argument that everything the Government do is being done too fast is a familiar Opposition refrain. It in effect suggests that we can somehow just pass the responsibility on to succeeding generations and not grasp it ourselves. I think we must grasp it ourselves, but that does not mean I am unsympathetic to the arguments about that specific cohort of women who are affected in a particularly negative way.

I know there were debates on these measures in the other place, but I am not persuaded that we must defer taking them to beyond 2020. I am not going to talk about the implications of the equality legislation so often supported by Opposition Members, even though that may have led to a situation whereby what was stated in the coalition agreement cannot now be put into effect. However, what I am certainly uncomfortable about is any woman having to wait more than an additional year. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will be aware that Sally Greengross—Baroness Greengross, a Cross Bencher widely respected in this area—put forward a compromise proposal that has much merit, based as it is on the idea that no woman waits for more than a year. The restriction was limited in that way, and the measure was exceptionally intelligently crafted.

I have read Lord Freud’s responses to this debate. He said that the proposal would cost not £10 billion, as the Opposition suggest, but only £2 billion. Given that I want to husband public resources—and that we apparently have the Opposition’s support for shifting retirement ages forward from 2034 and 2044 to dates that are significantly earlier, saving perhaps £2 billion—I am much more attracted to the idea of matching that saving and making far greater savings elsewhere.

Lord Freud responded to the debate by pointing out the gender equality legislation—the equality provisions of European law—that might make this a difficult proposition. However, I am not persuaded that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State’s Department lacks minds sufficiently sharp to overcome this difficulty. [Interruption.] Yes, I am absolutely sure that the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Thornbury and Yate (Steve Webb), could draft the legislation required; but if not, he has all the necessary skill within his Department.

I am very happy to tell all of my constituents who have written to me on this issue that, because of what is happening with longevity, it is fair, if we are asking men to wait a further year, to ask women to wait another year. There are those who say it is a double whammy because we are also seeing equalisation from the age of 60, but that is already a part of the architecture and cannot be taken into account. I am certainly prepared to argue that case.

I want to make two final points that are connected not with this issue but with other aspects of the Bill. In it, adjustments are made to the financial assistance scheme. Many of my constituents have been affected by the collapse of Allied Steel and Wire. On the question of the general attitude of Labour toward pensioners, many of ASW’s pensioners know the “assistance” they got from Labour: none whatsoever. That is the reality. However, the truth is that, under the financial assistance scheme, many people are not even going to get the 90% that was flagged up as their likely reimbursement. I hope we get opportunities to address that issue. I am looking across at my hon. Friend the Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams)—I do not know whether I should call him my hon. Friend; he might be offended by that. My hon. colleague and I have discussed this issue, and it is important that we return to it to address some of the injustices in the operation of the financial assistance scheme as it affects ASW pensioners.

[Malcolm Wicks]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Jonathan Evans]

On that issue only, yes.

[Malcolm Wicks]

Will the hon. Gentleman at least acknowledge, in fairness, that it was the last Labour Government who set up both the financial assistance scheme and the pension protection fund, which, whatever the difficulties, have helped many tens of thousands of people who were going to lose their pensions?

[Jonathan Evans]

The right hon. Gentleman and I have known each other for many years and he knows I have the highest respect for him. I certainly accept that we eventually ended up with that legislation, but it took a long time to get there. However, he was material in trying to achieve that.

Let me also say a word about the effects of auto-enrolment. I was staggered to hear the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill tell us that he does not like the proposals on auto-enrolment. I have to say that I am concerned about the impact of our continually increasing the personal allowance—as I understand it, that is going to be part of our policy—if we are just going to link the personal allowance figure to the level at which auto-enrolment kicks in. I am reassured by what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State says about keeping this under review, but the movement from £5,000 to £7,000 is not, as described by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill, an attack on poorer workers. The reality, on the information that we have, is that those people would be worse off if they were within the scheme.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

May I tempt my hon. Friend with a thought about why the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill made such an issue of this? I wondered whether he was searching for a reason to vote against the very policy that his Government, when in power, wanted to bring in, because there is nothing else in it with which Labour disagree.

[Jonathan Evans]

I am aware that the Forum of Private Business does not like the fact that the Government have not made more adjustments in this area, and of course the Government would like to have a situation in which all parties were on board at the end of the review, but the proposal of the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill has virtually no supporters, save perhaps for those within the union movement—surprise, surprise. The reality is that the proposals we are taking forward are overdue, but there has been too much misinformation about this change. Ultimately, I want to see a situation in which no woman has to wait more than a year longer than she had expected to wait, but the linking of that issue with a 25-year lead-in to the equalisation of pensions at 65 by those engaged in this campaign has been deliberately misleading and has not served the interests of all the people who have written to us.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Thank you for your time constraint.

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[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

The upshot of the Bill is that many people will have to work longer than they expected, and at short notice. That is the point. People will have made their plans, but they will no doubt have to be changed if the Bill goes through.

I am sure the Minister knows better than I that pension planning is a long-term business, and that is why there is such value in cross-party consensus, in stability, in fairness and in any change being slow and clear. Those are, I think, the Pensions Minister’s own views, and that is one reason why there have been constant problems since a previous Conservative Government broke the consensus on pensions almost 30 years ago—a consensus that the Turner changes in the 2007 Act re-established to an extent.

I, too, have received a lot of correspondence, with constituents and others expressing lots of concern at what they see arising from the Bill as a sudden change, which, they also contend, does not have broad support across the parties or among people throughout the UK. Some see the change as a fundamental break in the social contract between government and people, while others accept that as life expectancy lengthens so too must the length of the working life, but all object to the change in the implementation time scale that the Bill proposes.

Hon. Members have already said that an estimated 5 million people born between 1953 and 1960 will have to wait longer to reach state pension age. Although the wait for the majority of people will increase by less than one year, about 500,000 women born between October 1953 and April 1955 will have to wait more than an additional year and 126,000 women born between December 1953 and October 1954 will have to wait up to two years, losing about £10,000 in pension. Those are the facts as we understand them.

Men and women on low incomes who are reliant on pension credit and have no private pension savings will be most affected by the changes, and we have many such people in Wales. A great deal has been spoken about the gender effects of the potential changes, and women will be hit hardest, but there are also effects on disabled people and potential effects on ethnic groups.

We have also heard about class effects. I, too, have looked at the Age UK briefing, and it states for example that a higher percentage of people in social classes D and E are unable to work on, with one third of such women, at least, being in ill-health. Age UK also points out that awareness of the changes among people in classes D and E is very much lower.

There are also national and regional effects, which have had less attention. The changes will hit some sectors of society harder than others, and we in Wales, as in Scotland, have more people in those sectors than other parts of the UK. In Scotland, life expectancy is four years below the European average at 76 for men and 80 for women. Glasgow has the lowest life expectancy in the UK—71.1 years for men and 77.5 for women. These people will be severely hit.

[Jonathan Evans]

The hon. Gentleman is right about life expectancy numbers. Somebody with a fund who has a poor health record will get a bigger annuity than somebody who has a healthy record. How would he resolve that in terms of the state pension situation? He seems to be saying that he would not change the current arrangements.

[Hywel Williams]

A large number of people are unable to get an annuity in the first place because they do not have that sort of pension. Nobody is arguing against the fact that life expectancy is extending—of course, that should be welcomed. However, the fact that the change is being brought in quickly will particularly affect certain groups in relation to class, gender and where they come from.

The effects in Wales will be much more pronounced. That is demonstrated by figures for July 2009-10 on the composition of the work force taken from the ONS publication “Regional Trends”. The average proportion of the population in the UK who are managers and senior officials is 15.6%, the figure for the south-east is 18.3%, and the figure for Wales is 13%. Managers and senior officials will not be hit as hard by the changes, because they have other sources of pension income and live longer. In Wales, we have fewer such people who are able to depend on a decent pension and expect to live longer; unsurprisingly, the south-east has many more. Likewise, in the case of process, plant and machine operatives, the UK average is 6.7%, the figure for the south-east is 5%, and the figure for Wales is 7.3%. As regards people in elementary occupations, the UK average is 11.1%, the figure for the south-east is 9.7%, and the figure for Wales is 11.8%. Workers and future pensioners will be disadvantaged in Wales, as in the rest of the UK, but the effects there and in Scotland will be more pronounced.

Plaid Cymru Members welcome the continuation of automatic enrolment in pension schemes. Given the increases in short-term employment, casualisation and multiple part-time jobs, we share Age UK’s concern about the earnings threshold, particularly the possible negative impact of the three-month waiting period and its effect on staff who might not stay in the job for long enough. We have the same concern about those who have multiple low-paid jobs and therefore may not reach the threshold and be excluded.

In a speech I made some months ago, I expressed reservations about the indexation process, so I will not labour that aspect. My final point is about the Pension Protection Fund, which was raised by the hon. Member for Cardiff North (Jonathan Evans) and is referred to in part 3 of the Bill. The PPF came about partly as a result of pressure put on the former Labour Government by Members in all parts of the House arising out of the ASW steelworkers scandal: a very difficult situation in which the Government had to be persuaded—I use that word advisedly—to act. Unfortunately, the ASW campaign is still ongoing. I recently met some of the workers, and I have tabled early-day motions and attended meetings on the subject, as has the hon. Member for Cardiff North. In November 2010, the pensions specialist Dr Ros Altmann suggested possible ways in which the coalition Government could assist the ASW workers. Will the Minister tell us what progress is being made in that case? That would go a long way towards responding to the campaign by those workers.

[Ben Gummer (Ipswich) (Con)]

The salient fact of this debate is that by the time it finishes at 10 o’clock, the average age to which we and our constituents might expect to live will have increased by an hour and a half. If I were to speak for 10 minutes or a quarter of an hour, which I will not, then merely in the course of my speech average life expectancy would have increased by four minutes. I hope that that is compensation for what hon. Members are about to endure.

The simple fact of demography that for every hour that passes 15 minutes is added to the age to which we, as a population, can expect to live forces us to revisit the state retirement age—the age at which people stop paying taxes and start depending largely on the fruits of others’ labours. It is a fact that is unlikely to change in the half century to come. In fact, if the experience of the past few years is anything to go by, the acceleration of our expected mortality rates will only increase, rendering irrelevant and insufficient all the predictions on which we currently rely. There is near consensus that maintaining the existing pension age is unaffordable and that we should correct that by ratcheting up the state pension age year by year to reflect increasing life expectancy.

However, I am worried by the idea that by the mid part of this century, asking people to retire at 70—incidentally, the age intended by Lloyd George in his great Act of 1908—will be seen as the way to fix this problem, because we may not correct everything that we hope to correct just by increasing the state pension age and doing everything contained in this excellent Bill. Although I support the intention of the Bill and the immediate steps that it takes, the Government need rapidly to revisit the conventions and means by which successive Governments address the central problem of increasing life expectancy and the effect of that on the Exchequer and those working to fund it. Otherwise, we will again end up in a situation that is unsatisfactory and inadequate. It is unsatisfactory because with every increase in the state pension age, we inflict another set of injustices and unfairnesses on those who are approaching that moment in their lives. The predicament of the relatively small group of women we have been debating is a sure indication of far greater problems to come for Governments in future years.

Because we are facing this cross-generational challenge, it is incumbent on us to try to forge a consensus between the parties about the rules by which we deal with pensions policy. One of those rules is suggested by the example of the women who are particularly affected by the Government’s proposed changes. When times are normal—these are not normal times—there might be a rule whereby people are given at least 10 years’ notice before we change their pension entitlements or the age at which they can claim them. Perhaps the case of the class of ’53, as they call themselves, is the test by which the Government will be measured in this respect.

Although I understand why the Government might fairly ask that people work an additional year to deal with the horrendous deficit and national debt we have been left, to ask a relatively small group of people to work an additional two years with six years’ notice is a very big ask, not least because it calls into question other excellent parts of the Bill that are designed to encourage saving. We cannot ask people to save and then give them no time in which to do so. I hope that in considering a way to smooth the edge of this part of the legislation, the Government will not only fashion a compromise for the women who are being asked to work an additional 13 to 24 months, but thereby establish the first set of conventions by which successive Governments can deal with this issue.

Another unfairness in the Bill, which was not intended by the Government, results from the change from RPI to CPI for uprating. Many of my constituents who are on occupational schemes, mostly from British Telecom, have found that their pensions have been changed only two years after they were renegotiated between the trustee and the pensioners. The trustee claims that it has been forced to do that by the rules of the scheme. My constituents and I would be interested to know the degree of consideration the Minister gave to the effect that his changes to the uprating regulations would have on the occupational schemes of previously nationalised industries, because they have had a very adverse effect on people who thought that they had funded schemes.

Those are the unfair and unsatisfactory parts of the Bill, which I consider to be largely good. I understand that the Opposition supported the change from RPI to CPI, but on a temporary basis. With characteristic innumeracy, they therefore miss the central challenge that confronts us, which is not just the deficit that we must deal with between now and 2016, but the period after that. There is an idea that in 2016 the deficit will somehow come to an end, we will be finished with our problems, and we can then extract the cheque book from our pocket and go on another splurge. That will sadden people, because if we did that, we would find ourselves with one of the highest debt to GDP ratios in the developed world—higher than most of our developed competitors and significantly larger than almost all of our developing competitors, just at the point at which they move up the value chain to meet us on high-end manufacturing, learning-based skills and value-added services.

At that point, we will be faced with a demographic scene that is not much altered from the one the Government look at now. We need only look at the support ratio to tell us that. It currently sits at about four workers per pensioner—the lowest in the history of the state pension. Under the Pensions Act 2007, it would decrease by 2023 to 3.11 workers per pensioner. That figure will improve under the Bill to 3.35—a difference of 6%. At that point we will still be slipping down, and none of this changes the central projection to 2058—150 years after the introduction of the state pension—when there will be 2.74 workers per pensioner. There will then be fewer than three workers for every pensioner they must support.

Pensions are a double-sided promise. On the one hand, we, as parties engaging in government or opposition, must give people the security to know what they will receive in their retirement. That is why I urge the Government to look carefully at the women who will be particularly affected by this change, and at those who are coming to the end of their working life in the public sector. As many of their accrued rights as possible must be respected, because that is what was promised to them, whether or not it was prudent to do so at the time.

In understanding that, we have to be far more brutal with the younger generation, which has many more years to work. Frankly, younger people will not be able to have a pension of the size that their parents and grandparents have come to expect, because of the horrendous deficit and the enormous debt that we have been left by the previous Government—larger than those of almost all our competitors around the world. As a result of that debt, we will have less to spend on education, training and infrastructure improvement. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Bain) smiles, but it is true that as a result of the actions of his Government, we have less to spend on things that will grow the economy and there will be fewer tax receipts to pay for the welfare state that we have come to expect as a nation.

[Jonathan Evans]

I wonder whether my hon. Friend picked up on the remark from the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne), when challenged on the cost of his proposal, that money could be raised by bringing forward significantly the current programme for retirement at the ages of 67 and 68. Perhaps we should bank that promise from the Opposition before it evaporates like so many of their remarks.

[Ben Gummer]

What I found surprising about that comment from the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne) was that it completely ignored the sensible intervention by his colleague the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field), who made quite plain the difficulty of bringing forward the state pension age rise too quickly because of its manifest unfairness on manual labourers, who have a much lower life expectancy than others. That is a central problem that we have to deal with and a reason why the state pension age will become inadequate. At some point, we have to address that unfairness, whether by measuring the length of period worked or by doing far more than has been done so far to improve the occupational health of large numbers of people in this country.

We come back to the essential problem: there is not only no money now, but there will be no money for many decades to come if we are to have the money to invest in growing our economy. Frankly, we will have no welfare state to pay for if we do not address these big issues now. We will be lying to future generations and forcing upon them a generational theft if we are not straight with them now about the reality that confronts them. That is my generation, as much as it is that of the hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves). We will be expected to save considerably more and receive considerably less from the state. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown)—she is a Whip and I will not criticise her—is huffing and puffing away, but the fact is that between 2002 and 2006, the structural deficit was run up, inflicting this problem on generations of people to come. The worst affected will be those on low incomes and the unemployed—the very people her party was founded to protect.

We must be honest with future generations and correct the small inadequacies in this Bill. I urge the Minister to look carefully at the long-term reforms that are needed in our pensions system if we are not to come back here year after year to let down pensioners on the promises that were given to them in ages past.

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[Jonathan Evans]

Hon. Members on both sides of the House will have received similar letters. The Labour party’s policy, as far as I understand it, is to begin the process in 2020. Therefore, those people would write similar letters—would they not?—if the policy adopted by the hon. Lady were pursued.

[Julie Elliott]

That is absolutely right. The Labour party set out a similar policy of raising the pension age, but we would have done it by 2020, which would have allowed a considerable time for people to plan and to take that into account. The problem with the Government’s proposal is not raising the pensionable age, but doing so in such a short period. That is radically different from anything the Labour party proposed.

The coalition agreement said that the state pension age would not rise sooner than 2016 for men and 2020 for women. The Bill breaks that coalition commitment. My constituents feel very angry and misled about that. Like many of the coalition’s ill-conceived policies, this is too much, too fast.