Pensions Bill

I speak to my Amendment No. 5. The provision for gender impact assessments under the public duty to promote equality is welcome, and I congratulate the Government and the DWP as first department to make that provision. I also welcome very much recognition of the caring role as counting towards the 30-year qualification but, unless this is made retrospective, there will be stark inequalities between people with identical contribution records. The figures available to me—the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, referred to correspondence from Age Concern, Help the Aged and other bodies—suggest that this could be as much as £1,000 a year at current pension rates. We know that the situation of today’s pensioners remains acute: two-thirds of those in poverty are women; 40 per cent of eligible people are not taking up pension credit; and 47 per cent of people eligible for council tax benefit are not taking it up. Although, overall, the Bill will mean that outcomes between men and women converge, the Pensions Policy Institute, of which I have the privilege to be president, estimates that that will not happen until 2050. By then, the projected number of people of state pension age or older will amount to 25 per cent of the population, as opposed to 19 per cent now. In Committee in the House of Commons, the Minister said that the cost of making the 30-year requirement retrospective would be extremely expensive. The cost is estimated to be about £1 billion, yet the Government estimate that £4 billion will be saved by ending contracting-out rebates. The estimate of the value of unpaid childcare by grandparents is £220 billion and that of carers is £57 billion. In that context, how can the Minister say that £1 billion to address a significant unfairness is extremely expensive? The Government seem content to exploit the good will of families but are unwilling to give back this relatively small sum. We know that longer life expectancy, togetherwith changing family structures, relationships and interdependencies, requires greater recognition and greater commitment from the Government. In correspondence that I have received, concern has been raised that the current method of each year deducting home responsibilities protection from a woman’s target working life of 39 years makes a current HRP year mathematically less valuable than a year of home responsibilities payments for women retiring from6 April 2010 onwards. Something needs to be done and I hope that the Minister will respond favourably.