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Pensions Bill

My Lords, I, too, support the amendment. I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, for her expertise and her tenacity in trying to correct a real anomaly in pensions provision, which she has, with her usual clarity, exposed to the House. She emphasised the number of women who are affected by this anomaly; we do not know the full number, but it is substantial. I should like briefly to point up the particular problems in rural areas. In rural west Norfolk, 12 per cent of retired women are likely to have the full pension provision compared with 92 per cent of men. Twenty-three per cent of retired women in Birmingham will qualify for a full pension provision compared with, again, only 12 per cent in rural west Norfolk. Thirty per cent of such women will qualify in Cambridge; 20 miles away in rural west Norfolk, only 12 per cent will. Why is this? As the noble Baroness has explained in the past, it is mostly to do with rural employment patterns. A woman may well have to take a number of low-paid jobs. She might have three jobs: she might be doing vegetables in the morning, cleaning in the afternoon and, more than likely, working for a private caterer in the evening. None of those jobs pays her enough to qualify her for this pension provision. It is extraordinary. The noble Baroness has provided us with an opportunity to correct the anomaly in an entirely sensible way which may find favour with the Minister. We cannot speak, of course, for the Treasury. Another issue affecting rural areas is that many older women have to give up work altogether, either to look after grandchildren or to look after elderly parents. I make this point especially for rural women because the access to childcare or to day care for elderly relatives is limited by transport. If you do not have two cars in your family, you can forget it; you do the caring. So women are doubly or trebly disadvantaged if they live in rural areas. That is why the amendment should be supported.