Having been with this Bill from the outset, I remain disappointed, given the answers that the Minister gave to my interventions, that we have not made any substantial progress on resolving this issue. It will be predominantly women, although not necessarily entirely so, who will be disadvantaged. In other aspects of the Pensions Bill, the Minister has said how important it is that people will now build up their own entitlements for their own individual pensions. Being able to get a derived pension from a spouse, a deceased spouse or an ex-spouse will disappear from the system. We discussed that issue at considerable length during the passage of the Bill. Indeed the Minister has majored on this whole issue of people having their own individual entitlement.
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I can understand a Minister saying in Committee that an amendment is flawed and could perhaps have been better expressed. However, given that we have been at this for some months and that there has been such interest in the matter, which goes right back to the evidence session and before, it is disappointing that an effort has not been made to reach out and say, “We think this is flawed, but this is what we can do about it to make it real.”
I am not convinced that the time scale suggested by the Minister is sufficiently energetic to allow this matter to proceed. Even if there are only a few people who fall outwith the other categories, they are none the less real. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Gregg McClymont) said, universal credit—even if does emerge in its full form, which is slightly doubtful—is not the complete solution. Those women who, in the past, depended on their husband’s contributions will no longer be able to do that and will not qualify for universal credit if their household income lifts them above the required level. I am disappointed that the Minister has not found a solution to the matter so far, and regret that he has not used this opportunity to do so.