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Pensions Reform

It is the solution that I mentioned a moment ago. We should have a simple scheme, whereby we continue the basic state pension and have an investment-led scheme that builds alongside it, so that at the end of the day it delivers a pension that takes us all off means-testing. It would be compulsory and simple. There would be one scheme and no mis-selling. If other people wish to save on top of that, fine. It is not our job to try to persuade them to do so and we should not use huge sums of taxpayers’ money to try to bribe them to save beyond that. However, it is the House’s duty to deliver a scheme that, at end of the day, takes all our constituents off means-tested benefits. That will not be offered by those on the Labour Benches or on the Conservative Benches. I am sorry that I am rather like Job this afternoon and am introducing a note of cynicism into the mood of self-congratulation that was embracing us all up until the point at which I spoke. Consensus is not made in this House; it is made outside by our voters, who will discipline us for destroying a scheme that they wish to keep. At the end of the day, they will not support the reforms that the Government are bringing forward. I end on a note of sadness. We have a Secretary of State of real quality who is selling proposals that will not last. Imagine what the enthusiasm in the country would be if we had managed to match the Secretary of State with a scheme that worked with the grain of human nature, rather than against it.