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Pensions Bill [HL]

If I may, I want to use the amendment to raise an issue that has been touched on before but which needs to be re-emphasised, although I am sure that noble Lords are well aware of it. That is the differing work patterns, whether waged or unwaged, of women and of men through their working-aged lives. We all recognise as appropriate that women, even those with children once the children are old enough, should be encouraged to enter the labour market. I have no problems with that at all; I think that it brings independence, increased income, sociability and all sorts of other life chances. Also, it encourages other members of the family to realise that work is indeed an option and appropriate for them in years to come. I have no problem with that, but that is the position of only about 60 to 70 per cent of women. When we talk about them being in work, we are including part-time work as well as full-time work. The number of women in full-time work is relatively very low—mostly among lone parents rather than married women, because married women tend to work fewer hours although more of them do some part-time work. A group has been hinted at who are doing some of the most heavy-ended work of the lot without anything other than a most trivial benefit income attached to it. That is what I call heavy-end caring. I attach this to my noble friend's amendment. I do not have an easy answer for what should be done about it, except to say that I would like to see an age-related premium attached. Taking a woman who is perhaps in her early 60s at the moment, she is likely, if she is a carer—and several million of them will be—to be caring for someone in their upper 80s. We know that one person in three over the age of 85 is likely to suffer from dementia, which will become increasingly severe although their physical health may remain. We also know that another one of those three aged over 85 is likely to be experiencing severe physical health problems, although their longevity may expand. So she—and it will almost always be a she—will be involved in that heavy-end caring. I am delighted that the previous Government have allowed for those doing what I call lighter-end caring of 20 hours a week to come into the NI system without payment—although, probably rightly, without paying a carer's allowance. Think about those women who currently receive a carer's allowance of about £57 a week, together with the right to earn up to £100 if they can manage it. The effect of what I call heavy-end caring—by that I am talking about 50 or 60 hours a week—is that, first, it almost certainly breaks the health of the carer. All the experience of caring is that the help of the carer suffers seriously. Secondly, the carer’s savings run down. She is usually caring for another family member, probably her parents or possibly the parents of her husband. In order to make their life tolerable, she is using her money. What savings she may have will help to keep them afloat as well as herself. Thirdly, she will suffer, as a result of heavy-end caring, increasing isolation, so that when she comes to need care in turn there will be few people able or willing to care for her. Finally, as a result of all that, given her caring record, she has become in the eyes of an employer someone who is tired, has been out of the waged labour market for perhaps 15 years, has poor physical health and has perhaps suffered, as a result of bereavement, from depression. She is then expected to go into the labour market, but she is effectively unemployable. Even if she were willing, able, fit, healthy and financially buoyant to re-enter the world of work, it will be very difficult for her to do so. The women who are being asked to stay in the labour market between 60 and 65 are precisely that group who are doing what I call heavy-end caring. It is caring that gets heavier as they get older, because the person cared for is getting older and is more likely to have Alzheimer's and severe problems of longevity. I do not have an easy answer, except to say that if we cannot—as we obviously should not—keep women's pension age at 60, I would like some age-related premium or some version of what my noble friend mentioned: some recognition of carers’ responsibilities. We are too easily assuming that women are in the waged labour market and will stay there for up to an extra six years. That is true for men; it is not true and never will be true for women who expect and embrace with grace the heavy-end job of caring which, as I said, will make them poorer, possibly break their health, may leave them isolated and almost invariably unable to re-enter the world of work at 63 or 64, when the person for whom they have cared has finally died. I hope that, between now and Report, my noble friend can in conjunction with us think of ways to address that, because I think that those women will find themselves in a very bad situation.