Pensions Bill

I am always on tenterhooks when the Minister talks about consensus, because I never know whether the bouquet of flowers he is proffering conceals a water pistol. He cannot resist those little political digs, but we will deal with them later on. I join the Minister in thanking all the members of the Committee, in particular the two Chairmen who served us so well, the officials, the police, the Hansard reporters and everybody involved—some of the Bill team have become old friends. No doubt we shall all meet again in a few months’ time, unless I am sacked or reshuffled—[Hon. Members: ““Never.?] I thank my hon. Friends for that. We are always pleased to know that another pensions Bill is just around the corner, but as we bid farewell, for the time being anyway, to this Bill, I think that it is a pity that owing to pressure of time today some important issues have not been debated fully or indeed at all. No doubt their lordships will help to remedy that. I shall not be inviting my right hon. and hon. Friends to vote against Third Reading. I hope that that does not produce an exodus from the Chamber on the Government Benches. We did not vote against Second Reading either. From the start of the Bill—and even before it was introduced—we in the official Opposition have taken a thoroughly responsible attitude and worked hard to try to forge a long-term cross-party consensus on pensions reform. At times it has been tough, but we have continued to try. I am still entirely unclear whether the Liberal Democrats are part of that consensus, or part of a parallel consensus that is going on somewhere else and that neither we nor the Government seem to be involved in. It is right to say again that, as the Minister indicated, we support the basic direction of travel that the Government are setting out. In our last election manifesto, we promised to restore the link between the basic state pension and earnings and set out how that would be paid for. We also promised to tackle the gross unfairness—as the Minister has said—of a situation in which less than a third of women receive the full state pension. It would be the height of churlishness to oppose the measures simply because they have been proposed by another party, but we do have concerns. As Joe Harris of the National Pensioners Convention said,"““3 million older people will have died before ministers restore the link with earnings?." It still puzzles me why something that might not be affordable in 2012 will definitely be affordable by 2015. The Minister tried to explain that to me on a number of occasions in Committee, but either I am even more obtuse than I thought or there simply is not an answer to that conundrum. I wonder whether the Minister would mind trying his luck again if he gets another chance in this debate. The Minister returned to the canard that we heard in Committee about what my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond) said. I think that I made it clear in Committee, but for the sake of complete clarity, I repeat that my hon. Friend was saying that the decision about affordability could be made now. He was wondering why the Government could not make that decision. We also remain concerned about the cliff edge for some women pensioners and we remain concerned that many women already retired or soon to retire will see little or no benefit. The issues surrounding carers have been eloquently argued both here and in Committee by my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous). It is perhaps a shame that he did not have the opportunity this evening to develop those arguments more fully.