Pensions Bill

Debate between Mark Reckless and William Bain

Monday 17th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab)]

Increasing dignity in retirement, respecting the contributory principle in our social security system and reducing poverty among the elderly are all marks of a good society. In our consideration of the Bill tonight, some of those principles, which were also followed by previous Governments, have been referenced. The previous Labour Government, whom I supported, began the process of auto-enrolment for work-based pension schemes, which will eventually encourage 11 million people to save for a secure second pension. That Government also made substantial progress in halving rates of relative pensioner poverty, with as many as one in six of my constituents seeing significant increases in their living standards as a result of expanding pension credit.

Nevertheless, a great and growing number of our constituents who are approaching the state pension age or are just above it want to continue working. If we are to see an increase in the UK’s employment rate, providing work incentives through the tax and benefit system for this group of people will be essential too. If the current working-age population are not to experience a triple whammy—facing continued weakness in the value of real wages for the foreseeable future while taking most of the burden of fiscal consolidation now and much lower levels of retirement income than they would aspire to—it is vital that we reform the state pension and encourage pensions saving through occupational and other similar schemes.

As the Institute for Fiscal Studies established last Friday in its analysis of the DWP’s data on households below average income, there has been a large improvement since the 1970s in levels of relative and absolute pensioner poverty, with the number of pensioners with incomes in the lowest quintile down from 47% in that decade to just 21% in 2011-12. Most of that improvement came with the changes introduced by the previous Labour Government, which made the reduction of pensioner poverty such a priority. Four decades ago, levels of pensioner poverty were between six and eight times higher than those for working-age adults without children, while 40 to 50 years ago, nearly two in five poor people were pensioners. By 2011-12, the latter figure had fallen to just one in five before housing costs and one in eight after housing costs.

Last week’s IFS research also shows why it is right that the Bill should build on the work of the previous Government by encouraging workplace and other second pension saving. Across the income spread for pensioners, income from second pensions has had a big impact on raising overall incomes. Over the past three decades, it has risen from 18% to 36% as a share of total net pensioner income for the richest fifth of pensioners and increased almost sixfold for the poorest pensioners to 15% as a share of total income in 2011-12. That, alongside the increase in the value of pensioner benefits and relatively lower housing costs in retirement as a result of a large increase in the proportion of pensioners owning their homes outright—now as many as three in four—has driven the major decline in relative pensioner poverty. There is also a large group of pensioners over 75, however, who are still the group most likely to be on the brink of falling into poverty. They must not be forgotten in this debate either.

As was said earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg), who is no longer in her place, the recent Scottish Widows annual pensions report shows adequate provision for retirement at an all-time low, with just 45% of people able to save enough for their retirement and a fifth unable to make any savings at all for it. That is driven by the unprecedented drop in recent years in real wages and therefore disposable incomes. There is also a gender gap, with women at a bigger disadvantage in pension saving than men. The average worker in the UK wants to retire at 66 ideally, on an income of £25,000 a year, which means savings of £1,000 a month from the age 30—a truly daunting prospect.

In principle, a higher flat-rate state pension set at £144 a week for future pensioners from 2016 is a good idea and reflects the contributory principle. Making some changes to the state pensionable age is sensible, given changing demographics and life expectancy, as well as the changing patterns of people’s working lives, to which I referred earlier. However, the power in the Bill potentially to revise the state pension age upwards every five years is problematic. It has the potential disproportionately to affect poorer communities, which experience lower life expectancy on average, in constituencies such as mine, where there are larger numbers of workers in manual occupations, which are more physically demanding.

There are also problems with how the Bill affects women. Many of my right hon. and hon. Friends, as well as other hon. Members, have referred to the 700,000 women born between 6 April 1951 and 5 April 1953, including around 600 in my constituency, who, under these proposals, will potentially receive a state pension worth £6 a week less on average than that of a man born on the same day. The Government have also been unduly silent about the 100,000 people who will have to work five years extra to be eligible for the full flat-rate state pension, on the back of 35 years of NICs rather than 30 years as at present.

That is an issue for people working part time in more than one job—they are mainly women—who might be earning below the national insurance threshold in each job and therefore not building up sufficient pension rights. There are 8,000 women working part time in my constituency, with the median wage for this group of workers at just above the living wage. They deserve a guarantee from the Government that they will not lose out disproportionately as a result of these changes. The employment rate among women aged between 50 and 64 has increased by 3.5% in the last few years. I welcome that, but it would be remarkably unjust if they ended up with weaker pension rights as a result, having done the right thing and got back into part-time employment.

Future stages of this Bill’s consideration, should it receive its Second Reading this evening, should deal with how we can help women affected by the abolition of derived rights in April 2016, which will mean that women who have been unable to build up sufficient national insurance credits will lose the right to receive 60% of their husband’s pension—or all of it—should their husband die. By 2020 as many as 30,000 women could be affected by this change alone.

Similarly, the Government should address what will happen for people in their 20s, many of whom will face a lower state pension under this Bill. The Government should face up to what the closure of the state second pension scheme will mean for people, who no longer have a state-backed low-cost option for pension savings. It is inexplicable that the Government have set their face against asking the EU to remove further restrictions on people being able to save through the National Employment Savings Trust. What will the Government do about individuals who would have built up high entitlements under the state second pension, and how will they look after individuals who have only between seven and 10 qualifying years of national insurance contributions?

What arrangements will there be for passported benefits, currently paid under the guarantee credit? This also involves housing benefit and council tax benefit. Can the Government clarify what the system proclaiming these passported benefits will be should the Bill pass? The Government should also clarify a point in the impact assessment, which makes it clear that rather than the Green Paper’s aspiration that these proposals on the state pension age would be cost-neutral, a key driver now is making savings for the Exchequer.

Given the higher national insurance contributions that both employers and employees will have to make to pay for the new flat-rate pension, I hope that the Minister will be able to share with the House in his response what the long-term projections for pension spending as a share of Government and national income will be, to spell out what the Government’s long-term forecast for national insurance contributions receipts will be, and to provide reassurance to the country that the extra contributions people will be expected to make will not simply result in a long-term windfall for the Treasury and long-term pain for local government.

Clause 46, which deals with the Bill’s territorial extent, is important. The Bill applies throughout Great Britain. In other discussions taking place about the future of the United Kingdom, the future of pensions provision is a central issue. My constituents are deeply concerned that plans for Scotland to separate from the rest of the United Kingdom would lead to instability and insecurity in their incomes on retirement. Occupational and second pension schemes have to be fully funded if they operate over state borders within the EU. The level of shortfall in 5,000 UK occupational schemes running a deficit at the moment is, according to the recent Institute of Chartered Accountants in Scotland report, in the order of £265 billion. More than 11,000 separate occupational schemes are regulated jointly across the United Kingdom and are saved in by millions of people across the UK. People in Scotland deserve answers about the long-term future of pensions.

[Mark Reckless]

Can the hon. Gentleman be certain that, if Scotland were to become independent, his constituents would receive the pensions they expect, or might they be in a situation that we have seen in the Republic of Ireland, where pensions, including those being paid, have been significantly cut, at least in the public sector?

[Mr Bain]

Very sadly, I cannot be sure on that point. As I shall come on to say in a moment, further doubt has been cast on the future of pensions by utterances from the Scottish Government today, and the answers that people in Scotland are receiving from them are precious few. With their public face the Scottish Government are promising people more generous social security, while they are planning the precise opposite behind closed doors at the Scottish Cabinet table in Bute House. Despite their panel of advisers last week producing reasons in favour of a UK-wide social security system to share risk even after separation, the Scottish Government said, as reported in The Herald this morning, that should Scotland no longer be part of the UK, they could not guarantee to match the flat-rate state pension at £144 a week and that this Bill’s provisions would no longer apply in Scotland from 2016. What further evidence could there be for people in Scotland that if we want to guarantee the pound in our pocket, our deposits in the bank and now the security of our accrued pension entitlements, the only way to be sure of doing so is to vote to remain within the United Kingdom?

The general principles of the Bill are sensible, but it requires a good deal of further scrutiny to ensure that the losers do not outnumber the winners and that young people, women on low incomes in part-time employment and those in low-paid work do not pay a disproportionate cost for a flat-rate state pension. The Bill could go much further in extending the principle of auto-enrolment to those who earn enough to pay national insurance and in capping pension costs levied by providers. I hope that the Government will be generous enough to consider those points in Committee and on Report. People want long-term pension reform that works. There are good ideas from all parts of the House on strengthening this Bill. The Government should be prepared to listen and act on them, should the Bill receive its Second Reading tonight.