Pensions Bill

Debate between Liam Byrne and Pamela Nash

Monday 17th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Pamela Nash]

The pensions Minister gave the figure of £4.5 billion to put this group of women born between April ‘51 and ‘53 on equal terms with men. We have been hearing during the debate that this is about winners and losers, but does that not show that women born between ‘51 and ‘53 are losing out to the tune of £4.5 billion?

[Mr Byrne]

It is hard to refute my hon. Friend’s argument. I suppose we must look at the position of those women together with the consequences of the reforms that the Secretary of State has authored to auto-enrolment—I know he will do that. One of the first decisions he took in the Pensions Act 2011 was to link the threshold for participation in auto-enrolment to the personal allowance. As the personal allowance has gone up, more and more low-paid people have fallen out of the auto-enrolment system. In 2011-12, 600,000 people fell out of auto-enrolment, and another 100,000 in 2012-12. In 2013-14, 420,000 people will fall out of the auto-enrolment system—1.1 million people have been carved out of that system.

This is an incredibly important part of the pensions saving architecture for the future, and I am extremely concerned that a number of low-paid people—more than 1 million, most of them women—have been shut out of the auto-enrolment system. To that mix we now say to 720,000 women who had the misfortune to be born between April 1951 and 1952, that they will not get the new system either.