Pensions Bill

I support the amendment. There is a problem. The Government have recognised that at least 15,000 women, on their calculations, will remain outside the contributory system because their hours of work are fragmented between different jobs. They might at one time run together several part-time jobs—in a newsagent, a pub and a drycleaner’s shop, for instance, or in a cleaning job or as a cinema usherette—and that no single job takes them above the 16 hours even though their total week may be 40 hours or more. Equally—this example is again from the West Norfolk Carer’s project—a woman may undertake a multiplicity of jobs in a rural area that never register on the state pension radar. The example given from the network is of a real life woman who had a cleaning job in coastal holiday cottages in the summer, followed by three months in the local agricultural research industry from late August at a basic rate, a stint in the mushroom factory and perhaps a few weeks picking fruit or berries with gangmasters or working on a conveyer belt in a canning factory in King’s Lynn or the Fens. The real life woman in the example still ended up with total earnings that did not count as a qualifying year for a basic state pension. I may sound like a worn-out gramophone record, but Amendment No. 4 would help to address this issue, because it would allow people to know whether they had gaps so that they could make them good. The noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, says that he does not know how this can be done, but it is actually done now. I am sure that he is aware of this. If you are a lone parent, you seek tax credits and you have a multiplicity of jobs that together take you over the16 hours, you can add them together and get your tax credits. You can already do that for a high-value addition. You can run jobs together if you seek tax credits as a lone parent to get you over the 16-hour hurdle. By going into a tax credit at 16 hours, you get an entitlement to a national insurance credit for the basic state pension. That is the rule now—so it can be done and is done. The way forward may be the one suggested by the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas. I understand that there is a problem with divvying up national insurance between three or four employers at any one point in time. Of course, they would not want to do that, but the answer is surely to make it a credit and allow the employee to pay the contribution. That could be done under Amendment No. 4, if necessary. I hope that the Government take this amendment seriously. I do not like it that we have itsy-bitsy amendments spread over this and that group, but we are having to do it because there is not enough flexibility in the system. Despite the hopeful response of the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, the Government recognise that under their own estimates 15,000 women are likely to fall outside the system as well as perhaps 5,000 men—we do not know. We need to respond to their needs and one way to do that, if we do not go for the flexible method of allowing people to buy additional years at the end of a working life, is to go for an amendment such as this amendment. It is not the one that I would prefer, but if the Government will not move on mine perhaps we can encourage them to consider this other amendment.