Hansard - United Kingdom Parliament
Hansard - United Kingdom Parliament
Hansard - United Kingdom Parliament
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73 Pensions Bill [Lords]<br />
20 JUNE 2011<br />
Pensions Bill [Lords]<br />
74<br />
The changes have to feel fair, but the current proposals<br />
do not. The hon. Member for Aberdeen South said that<br />
fairness is extremely important, and as the Pensions<br />
Minister has said it is extremely important that the<br />
basic state pension, whatever its structure, has to feel<br />
fair, because it has to last a long time and be free from<br />
arbitrary political intervention. The current proposals,<br />
however, do not pass the fairness test.<br />
Mrs Main: The hon. Lady, who is making a powerful<br />
speech, seems, like me, to agree with an awful lot of the<br />
very good that is in the Bill, and it would be a shame to<br />
ditch the baby with the bathwater, as Opposition Members<br />
plan to do tonight. My hon. Friend the Member for<br />
Cardiff North (Jonathan Evans) has come up with an<br />
interesting proposal, and her hon. Friend the Member<br />
for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd) has just come up with<br />
one as well. Does she agree that Second Reading is the<br />
time to do so and to take such ideas into Committee?<br />
Like me, the hon. Lady will, I hope, have been encouraged<br />
by the sympathetic noises from Government Front<br />
Benchers, who are listening to the sensitive arguments<br />
from Government Members.<br />
Jenny Willott: I absolutely agree. As the hon. Lady<br />
says, the point of Second Reading is that we have the<br />
opportunity to air a whole load of different options and<br />
concerns about the Bill, and as she says also, there have<br />
already been a couple of proposals for tackling the<br />
issue. I am sure that we will hear more as the debate<br />
goes on.<br />
I completely agree that the Bill contains a huge<br />
amount that is valuable and important, so I am concerned<br />
about the Opposition saying that they will vote against<br />
it as a whole. Our constituents, living in our local<br />
communities, will be disappointed that the Opposition<br />
have taken that approach to the legislation and are not<br />
prepared to give a Second Reading to its positive elements.<br />
Dame Anne Begg: I am sure that the hon. Lady<br />
received a large number of e-mails and letters from her<br />
constituents who are affected by this particular anomaly.<br />
Did any one of them say that she should vote for the<br />
Bill, or did they all encourage her to vote against it?<br />
Jenny Willott: To be honest, I cannot remember<br />
whether anybody asked me to vote against the Bill.<br />
Most writers of the letters and e-mails that I have<br />
received raised concerns about the particular proposal<br />
in the Bill, and I agree with them. As I have already<br />
said, I share their concerns and have issues with what is<br />
proposed, but the whole point of Second Reading is<br />
that we have the opportunity to raise our concerns and<br />
to send the Bill into Committee, where people will be<br />
able to go through it clause by clause, to debate what the<br />
alternative may be and to have a chance really to<br />
scrutinise it. Today’s debate is not the time just to chuck<br />
it away.<br />
Dame Anne Begg: If there are no changes in Committee<br />
and the Bill returns to the Floor of the House in the<br />
same position as it is in today, will the hon. Lady vote<br />
against it?<br />
Jenny Willott: I cannot possibly say what I will do at<br />
that stage, because we do not know what shape the Bill<br />
will be in. I put the Bill in the safe hands—I am<br />
sure—of the Pensions Minister and of colleagues from<br />
all parts of the House, who will be able to look at it, try<br />
to refine it and send it back to us in the best possible<br />
shape. At that point, like all hon. Members, I will be<br />
able to decide whether to support it in its entirety.<br />
Sheila Gilmore: If the hon. Lady or other Members<br />
table an amendment in Committee on the issues that<br />
she says she is concerned about, will she vote for them,<br />
as she did not when the Welfare Reform Bill was in<br />
Committee?<br />
Jenny Willott: We have no idea who will be on the<br />
Committee for the Bill before us, so I cannot possibly<br />
comment on what amendments might or might not be<br />
tabled or on who might or might not support them.<br />
The Government should, however, think again about<br />
these plans and find a way to make them fairer for the<br />
worst affected women. We have already heard a number<br />
of proposals, and I was pleased that the Secretary of<br />
State made it clear that he is open-minded and willing<br />
to listen to what options there are. It was important for<br />
us to hear that this afternoon.<br />
Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD):<br />
I concur with my hon. Friend. The importance of today<br />
is that the strength of feeling about this one aspect of<br />
the Bill is aired, that Ministers convey the feeling that<br />
there will be a response and, most importantly, that<br />
there is a response that makes this part of the Bill fair.<br />
Jenny Willott: I agree. My hon. Friend has spoken in<br />
the House in recent weeks on the issue and on her<br />
concerns about its fairness, and I am sure that Ministers<br />
are listening and taking that message on board.<br />
I appreciate that this is a difficult and costly area in<br />
which to make any changes. The figures are mind-boggling,<br />
and a few months here and there will make a significant<br />
difference to the cost, but it cannot be beyond the wit of<br />
man to find a way to smooth the process in order to<br />
ensure that that small group of women does not end up<br />
being so badly affected. I have every faith in the Government<br />
and, in particular, in the Pensions Minister, who is<br />
generally regarded as one of the UK’s foremost experts<br />
on pensions. He has done a huge amount of work in the<br />
past on women’s pensions, helping thousands of women<br />
to get the money to which they are entitled, so I put him<br />
on notice today that I trust him to resolve the issue. I am<br />
sure that, if he cannot do it, nobody can.<br />
6.26 pm<br />
Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC): The upshot of the Bill<br />
is that many people will have to work longer than they<br />
expected, and at short notice. That is the point. People<br />
will have made their plans, but they will no doubt have<br />
to be changed if the Bill goes through.<br />
I am sure the Minister knows better than I that<br />
pension planning is a long-term business, and that is<br />
why there is such value in cross-party consensus, in<br />
stability, in fairness and in any change being slow and<br />
clear. Those are, I think, the Pensions Minister’s own<br />
views, and that is one reason why there have been<br />
constant problems since a previous Conservative<br />
Government broke the consensus on pensions almost<br />
30 years ago—a consensus that the Turner changes in<br />
the 2007 Act re-established to an extent.