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Pensions Bill [HL]

My Lords, first, I apologise to the House that due to a previous commitment I was not present to support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, in Committee. As other noble Lords have said, there are a number of changes which we welcome, not least that auto-enrolment into occupational pensions will in future help more people to save for retirement. However, as we all know, both from individual letters we have received and from organisations such as Age UK, Saga, the TUC and others, considerable numbers of women are very concerned. A total of some 2.6 million women are affected by all this, and they are very concerned at the Government’s proposed acceleration of the state retirement age. To be fair, they had certainly not expected such a step. I am sure it will not surprise the House to learn that I want to concentrate on the adverse effect that some of the Bill’s proposals will have on women, particularly on those turning 57 in March and April this year who will now have to wait until they reach 66 to receive the state pension they have contributed to during their working lives. They have had less than eight years’ notice of an additional two years without that state pension. Equally, we need, as the noble Lord has already said, to face two realities: first, that our parlous economic situation will inevitably reduce everybody’s quality of life, and secondly, the realisation that our increasing longevity means that all of us will in future have to work longer to earn a decent state retirement pension. However, we shall as well be seeing—I hope, as finance improves—far more effective equal opportunity practices available at all workplace levels for both sexes, which should mean that men as well as women can genuinely share rather more of the family responsibilities. That in particular is why I want to support the noble Lord’s amendments, for it seems to me that they have indeed faced these realities. On economic as well as longevity grounds, they do not ask for the full commitment which the coalition Government’s agreement promised to give to women to be fully honoured, but merely for a slight increase in what the Government themselves propose. For that reason, I really hope that when the Minister replies he will feel able to accept that compromise. I have to admit that my own preference would be for the commitment to be fully honoured. In my early days as deputy chairman of the Equal Opportunities Commission in the 1970s, pensions were not even perceived as pay. I am glad to say that that situation was very soon seen to be untenable. I return to what is proposed. A total of some 2.6 million women are affected. Of those, 33,000 women born in the 1953-54 period will see their state pension age increased by at least 18 months. It is estimated that those women will lose around £10,000. We need to remember, too, that when these women were first in the workforce, there were far fewer and far less well-paid jobs available to them than there are in today’s world, especially when they needed to work part-time or flexibly when children or other family members needed care. Two different illustrative figures bring this home very starkly. Women retiring in 2009-10 had on average a state pension of £92 compared with the average male state pension of £124. For those who were lucky enough to be involved in private pensions, an average man’s private occupational savings when aged 56 were £53,000 or nearby, which is no less than six times higher than the woman’s average total of £9,000. When we consider the just and fair thing to do in this situation, we all need to accept who bore the responsibility for bringing up the generation of healthy, well adjusted young people who are today those responsible for paying our state pension entitlement. We also have to remember that none of the savings that the Government claim to be making will be made during this period of major financial crisis. So why victimise this already exceedingly vulnerable group of women—the poorer they are, the more they will suffer—when no actual money will be saved during this Parliament and not least when, realistically, the likelihood of women in this age group finding or keeping jobs is minimal? If you add to all that the fact that, in our move towards a unisex retirement age—it is likely to be further increased as our longevity increases—we are asking women to increase their current earlier retirement age by a huge leap of six years compared to the one year expected of men, which was lower than that of men to compensate for the handicap of women in the workplace as a result of their family responsibilities, frankly, we should all be ashamed of doing anything less than what is proposed in these amendments.