Pensions Bill

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time. This Bill takes forward the key recommendations for pensions reform made by the Turner commission in 2005. These reforms will help to lay the foundations for a sustainable and affordable pensions system marked by significantly less means testing and greater personal responsibility for ensuring financial security in retirement. They will also provide a fairer deal for women and carers. The Bill makes important changes in five key areas. First, it will establish a simpler and more generous state pension that will provide a solid platform on which people can save, while continuing to target resources on those most in need. Secondly, there will be new rules on eligibility for the basic and second state pension which, for the first time, will properly recognise the social contributions that people make. In doing so, it will deliver fairer outcomes for many women and those with caring responsibilities. Thirdly, the Bill will pave the way for a new system of personal accounts that will make it easier for more people to save for their retirement, thus sharing the responsibility for pension saving more clearly between individuals and Government. Fourthly, the Bill will facilitate a streamlined regulatory environment that will strengthen existing pension provision, reduce the burden of regulation and help employers who already provide good workplace schemes. Finally, it confirms a higher state pension age for the future, which will keep the proportion of life spent receiving the state pension broadly stable for each generation, and help to secure the long-term financial stability and sustainability of the state pension system. The Bill represents probably the biggest change to our pension system since Clement Attlee’s post-war Labour Government implemented the Beveridge reforms. Thanks to the work of the Pensions Commission and to the national pensions debate, I hope and trust that these reforms will enjoy widespread support both in the House and outside. Those of us in the House today, when, as I hope, we support the Bill later tonight, have the opportunity to cement that consensus and, for the first time, to offer all our constituents a framework of long-term stability on which they can plan for their retirement with confidence. The Bill comes after 10 years of progress, since the Government came to office, in reducing the poverty that had all too often become associated with old age.