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Pensions Reform

I want to consider financial literacy, especially the financial education that our young people receive and how they make decisions about planning for their financial futures. I also want to discuss women and carers, and make some small points about the proposed retirement age in the White Paper and whether we need a body to oversee pensions in future. Pensions is not a sexy subject. If we talk to young people about pensions, we see their eyes glaze over, as my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Kali Mountford) said. I remember finding my pension statements difficult to fathom. They are complicated and dressed up in language that is not easily accessible. When we are young and should start to pay towards a pension, there are other pressures on money and we think that we will never get old. That struck me forcefully because it is my 40th birthday next month. At such a time, one suddenly starts to get interested in pensions. Often, people start to take the matter seriously at an age when they are told that the contributions that they must make are fairly hefty.