---

Pensions Bill

I deliberately did not intervene earlier because I find this quite a difficult balance to strike in this debate and I was interested to hear the thrust of the Minister's reply. Does he have any statistics to help us further? Although one’s instinct is obviously that job turnover is much higher and that there would be a lot of administrative cost from including later teenagers and 20 and 21 year-olds—one is conscious of the administrative cost for employers and possible extra costs for the Personal Accounts Delivery Authority of having a lot of small and very mobile accounts—that would help us decide. The point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, about instilling the savings habit is valid, although I think her figures are a little optimistic when it comes to how much difference it makes. I should not have thought that 16, 17 and 18 year-olds are earning anything like as much as average female earnings. Even accepting her point that female earnings peak earlier than those of men, I should not have thought that we were talking about very large amounts of money. I would be interested to hear further statistics on job turnover in that group.