Pensions Bill

My Lords, that response was disappointing and I am bound to say that I did not see the significance of the arguments that the Minister used at the end of his speech— that most people have already started taking the income before the age of 75 and that that is their choice. However, that is not the reason for saying that 75 is the right age for compulsory annuitisation. Secondly, he said that because returns are unrealistic for people beyond the age of 75, it was right therefore for annuitisation to be compulsory. The whole point is that if people do not like the returns, they will obviously not take them; however, I do not see why that is an argument that 75 is the right age. I thank noble Lords who have spoken, particularly those who supported the amendment, including the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, and the noble Lords, Lord MacGregor and Lord Howarth. I should say to the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, in clarification of the substance of my argument, that I tried to reach compromise on an amendment on which the Government could have been beaten. I congratulate him on his ingenuity in working his temporary amendment—if I may refer to it that way—into the Bill rather earlier than otherwise would have been the case. I should be clear that we on these Benches were happy to combine and support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, on an age limit of 80. The Question would have been put in prime time if the Conservatives had not chosen, for their own reasons, to move another amendment, which they perfectly well knew we would not support. Let us not have any nonsense about whether the Government could or could not have been beaten today. They could have been beaten on the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, which we were happy to support, to raise the age to 80—which we are now talking about. Let us not have any disinformation on that point. We were quite happy to give our support; we offered to do that and were rejected. Let me make it clear that we do not support a temporary change because that would be completely unworkable; I am unaware of any serious pension provider or anyone else who has examined such a proposal and said that it would work. It would create more uncertainty and instability in a very unstable situation. That is why we were unable to support such a proposal, but we believe that the age of compulsory annuitisation should be raised. Ideally, we would like it to be raised to 85 and we wish to test the opinion of the House. On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 77) shall be agreed to? Their Lordships divided: Contents, 46; Not-Contents, 99.