Pensions Bill

I thank my noble friend for the detail of his reply, which I will work on. He made two points—one on the complexity and impropriety of delay and of being able to pay at any stage, and another point regarding costs. We will return to the issue of costs, but when I asked for the figures, I was told that they were not available—although some of them have become available on the day of the Committee. It is difficult to be certain about what is being compared with what. I hope that my noble friend will do the work for me on this, because I am not sure that I can. I have said that I would be perfectly willing to discover what the cost of a class 3 contribution would have to be to make it cost effective, both for existing holders, who, according to my noble friend, are getting a freebie ride—the better educated, students and so on—and for women who might have even greater need than at present. So there is a bundle of issues associated with cost that we must scratch away at. My noble friend’s argument regarding time limits hinged on the question of delay. For the life of me, I do not understand the problem. My noble friend said that the amendment would incentivise delayed payments. Why does delay matter? At the moment, if you are in work, you pay your contributions as you go. If you know about it, you pay at the time. If you wish, you can pay for your whole life, as long as you do that within every six-year period, as my noble friend said. I do not understand why delay is even faintly relevant. Apparently you can buy 30 years of class 3 contributions at enormous cost to the Exchequer if you do it within six years, but we cannot, within nine years, apply the contributory principle to women who might come within the range of means testing at the end of their working lives, as the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, argued. I am sorry, but I am baffled by my noble friend’s argument on that. Perhaps he can help me further.