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Pensions Bill

I will try to help my noble friend. The issue of timing is important. People who are employed pay national insurance as they go along. The opportunity to pay class 3 contributions for an extended period until six years after the tax year in question gives some leeway, but one has to ask whether it is fair when you compare someone who pays their pension contribution on day one in each pay period with someone who says, ““I will store up my class 3 voluntary contributions and take a call on it at the end of my working life when I am about to retire””. There is a time cost to money and it seems to me that if we encouraged people to delay making their class 3 contributions until the last minute, that would have an impact on the National Insurance Fund. The scheme has a pay-as-you-go basis, as my noble friend is aware and there are cost implications to that.