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Pensions Bill

I agree wholeheartedly. There is lasting consensus between my hon. Friend and me. He makes a serious and important point. The UK pensions system is hugely complicated—the most complex in the western world—with all its ifs, buts, caveats, contributory principles, means tests and so on, to exclude a relatively small number of people from a pension that would keep them from poverty in retirement. The first step should be uprating the basic state pension in line with earnings. The Government say they might do that in 2012, but perhaps not until 2015. It would be nice to know, but as we said at the time of the last Pensions Bill, uprating in line with earnings should be introduced now. Why should the basic state pension, which is lower in real terms than it was in the 1950s, continue to fall in real terms until 2012 or 2015? That uprating should be the first building block of our citizen's pension.