Pensions Bill

I apologise for springing this on the Minister, but I draw his attention to the table in paragraph 289 on page 49 of the regulatory impact assessment; I bet he has it with him. I am sorry; I should have given him notice of this. The table confirms the point that my noble friends Lady Dean and Lady Turner are making. Interestingly, it may foreshadow some of our discussion on Amendment No. 81 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, in that it gives figures for longevity. We know from the Turner report and since Black and the discussion about health inequalities that everyone’s life expectancy has improved. Turner showed that longevity is increasing on average by about one year for every five years, compared with one year for every 10 years; so the speed at which longevity is improving is increasing. In particular, the gap between men and women is narrowing as a result. As I say, that may relate to debate on new sex-based annuities. Turner developed the Black figures on health inequalities to show—this is confirmed in the regulatory impact assessment—that the growth in longevity is uneven and that, for the poorest social classes—social classes 4 and 5—longevity has improved much less in the past 20 years than it has for social classes 1, 2 and 3. In other words, although everyone is living longer, the better off are living much longer, so inequalities are widening for the poorest. There is no tidy overlap between a construction worker or a fisherman in social classes 4 and 5, but I remember from my days in local government that refuse collectors who retired at 65 were not expected still to be with us two years later. There is obviously an interlocking between longevity and lifestyle, smoking and all the rest of it, but it is clear that health inequalities are continuing to widen according to social class, and occupation is to some extent a proxy for that. There is therefore real substance behind this. Gender inequalities are narrowing, which takes us back to the new sex-based annuities, but health inequalities are widening according to social class. That is the point that the amendment in the names of my noble friends is addressing. I have been trying to locate the quotation but cannot find it. I have had too much paper, I suppose. I do not know whether it is in the regulatory impact assessment or in the latest 25-page amendment to that assessment from the Minister for Pensions Reform, which was very helpful. It says somewhere that no decision has been made, nor will be made until, say, the 2020s, on what age at which one can draw a pension credit guarantee. In other words, although the state pension age is deemed to be rising—I do not disagree with that at all; that is how we make pensions affordable, given longevity—there is a commitment to reviewing whether the pension credit guarantee should rise at the same time and in the same way. If that is right—perhaps my noble friend could write to me because I am probably catching him on the hop on this—it would put in an underpin for those people whose health is impaired from, say, heavy industry and so on. As much as we would like, people cannot necessarily at the age of 63 or 64 be retrained from being a building worker, and they may have a fairly low functional literacy still. That may be the sort of safety net which would allow people to retire earlier on an adequate income than others. Perhaps my noble friend will help me, first, on the widening of health inequalities and the implications that that would have on my noble friend’s amendment and, secondly—if my noble friend has it to hand that would be terrific but, if not, he could write to us or tell us at a later stage—the implications for the separation of eligibility age for pension credit guarantee from that of the basic state pension. That may be a way forward.