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Pensions Bill [HL]

We are very sympathetic to the noble Baroness’s amendment. I congratulate her on an important contribution to this debate on an issue that the Government must address. A number of reasons have been explained, in this debate and in the preceding debate, on why that is important. Men are not being disadvantaged by more than one year, but over half a million women are. The period of notice is inadequate. Women in this age group are some of the most disadvantaged in terms of their pension provision. We have to accept that there is a contradiction with the coalition agreement. We are expecting some assurances from the Government in this debate, but we also accept that this is largely a negotiating matter with the Treasury. We welcome the announcement in the Budget of the new basic pension. The noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, complained at Second Reading that the Pensions Bill ignored the £140 new basic pension, and said that it was like ““Hamlet”” without the prince. Now we have ““Hamlet”” with the prince but without a script. We want to see some details of the government proposals before committing ourselves to new transitional arrangements. We know that in present value terms the amendment will cost £7 billion, but the Government need to address the problem and come back with a considered amendment during the passage of this Bill in the other House with regard to how women affected by these transitional arrangements will benefit from the new higher basic pension.