Pensions Bill

As I say, although I tabled the Question several weeks ago, I picked up the Answer only today, so I have not had time to digest and fully work through the department’s figures. However, they suggest that, depending on the assumptions, there would be a diminishing profit to the Treasury for about three years and an increasing cost thereafter. The figures were for only 2007 to 2009 and covered six years rather than nine. They could not, for example, take account of the problem of those who might not wish to buy those years, calculate what implications and interaction there would be for those who are married or calculate the implication of the de minimis rule. That is why the figures cannot, by definition, be robust, and I do not blame the department for that at all. I did not give precise figures because there are too many conditionalities attached to them to be able to calculate them. However, I can give figures for the individual. I emphasise that until now the Treasury has found it absolutely fine to have this provision for about 250,000 people a year who know how to make good their defaults in the system. As we do not know how many women who are not doing so will take advantage of that—we do not know that either because the department, perfectly legitimately, cannot tell us—we cannot give precise costs. All we can suggest is that there will be a modest profit to start with and a modest loss thereafter. However, it is certainly affordable for the individual woman—or man come to that—and, as I say, already exists for the rest of us.