---

Pensions

My Lords, I shall comment on two points made by my noble friend. On affordability, the position is absolutely clear. We would like to start the uprating in line with earnings for the basic state pension in 2012. That is subject to affordability, but it will be done at any rate by the end of the next Parliament and we shall make a Statement on it at the beginning of the next Parliament. I am very confident that we shall be so doing. On retirement age, I understand the point about those who do heavy manual work and how long they can work. It is individual matter. Whatever socio-economic class people come from, on average everyone is living longer, but much work needs to be done on re-skilling and on encouraging employers to take on and keep on older workers. I have no doubt that we shall debate that in the future.