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Pensions Bill [Lords]

If it had been self-evidently not possible, I think that the right hon. Gentleman would have pointed it out in the past 12 months, but I have not heard him do so. The right hon. Member for Croydon North (Malcolm Wicks) made a characteristically thoughtful speech and I hope that he is on the Public Bill Committee. That would lengthen our proceedings, but in a very nice way. He raised the important issue of the entitlement of people with long years of national insurance payments to a national insurance pension. He generously referred to the fact that I taught his daughter at university; I hope that I contributed in some way to her social mobility as a result. He raised the serious issue of using long periods of national insurance records. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State pointed out, the records before 1975 are a mess, which the right hon. Gentleman will know as he is one of my many predecessors. Our ability to use those records is very limited and one of my concerns about his proposal, which I am happy to discuss with him in a genuinely open way, is the position of women, because they would have to be credited for times when they were not in paid work. Some of that paid work will have been before home responsibilities protection was introduced and so we simply would not know who to credit. That is only one of the issues, but as I have said, we are happy to engage with him in the spirit of openness.