Pensions Bill

My Lords, I am so very glad to support this amendment today. I was never quite sure that this day would arrive. This will, in future, help women like Pam, who fostered more than 70 children for Surrey County Council and did not get a stamp for any of those years. It will help women like Carol, with two children of her own, who also cared for her grandmother, who was bedridden for 10 years with arthritis, a frail mother-in-law and a father-in-law suffering from dementia, and also fitted in voluntary work in a hospice. Such lives of quiet heroism. By being able to buy back an additional six years of national insurance, many women coming up to retirement will, as my noble friend said, now be able to build a full state pension—and others a pension much enhanced. Even if women, or men, took out a loan, the pension increase would more than cover the cost of that loan. In this climate of financial tsunami, a secure state pension matters even more to the lower paid. Of course, I would like this to go further. Ideally, it would be back-dated for older women who had already reached state pension age. I also noticed that my noble friend said that the price of voluntary NI contributions needs to rise, irrespective of this amendment, because from 2010 its value will go up by 50 per cent for men and, therefore, it is reasonable to adjust the price accordingly. The 20-year rule announced by my noble friend is also very sensible, as it excludes the casual Australian backpacker but will help all those women who, for example, can do better from buying back than on the married women’s dependency stamp, or who would otherwise be better off on pension credit. No doubt other noble Lords will wish to press my noble friend on further details. I shall just spend a last moment or two to say thank you. First, I thank the press, from the Daily Mail through to the Guardian, and particularly to that inner group of friends and colleagues from the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Age Concern, Help the Aged and Carers, which built a broad coalition of support, including the Federation of Women’s Institutes and the Federation of Small Businesses, from NAPF to the trade unions to the Fawcett Society. Furthermore, I thank the DWP, which, as my noble friend said, has always been sympathetic in so far as it was allowed to be—and, above all, my right honourable friend James Purnell, Secretary of State, who in last year’s and this year’s Bill together will help to transform the situation for women’s pensions. He has been a true friend to women. Finally, and above all, I express my gratitude to your Lordships tonight. Thanks to your support all round the House, 500,000 women will be able to build a decent state pension. They will find it worth saving; many now will not need to turn to income-related, means-tested benefits; and all of them will have a decent recognition of the contribution that they have made to society through caring and family responsibilities. Without your Lordships, it would not have happened. Indeed, I rather doubt that it could have happened in the other place at all. It is a really good and special thing that we together have done—and, if I may, on behalf of 500,000 women, I thank you all very much indeed.