Pensions Bill

My Lords, this is a very simple and brief amendment about service wives. Service wives without ch...

My Lords, some years ago I was chair of the Armed Forces Pay Review Body and I saw the way that w...

My Lords, I speak briefly in support of my noble friends and the thrust of this amendment. I shou...

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Hollis for tabling the amendment, for the very re...

My Lords, the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, concerns the position of spous...

The Minister obviously agrees with my noble friend’s figure of 500 to 600 people, but how many el...

Unless I am rapidly informed otherwise, I do not think that we know either at this stage. It is l...

Why is it difficult? I understand that when most people in civvy life claim X years ago to have d...

I will be in a much better position to explain the difficulties in a little while. So, rather tha...

I am extremely grateful to the Minister for giving way at this stage, and I am not ungrateful to ...

Let me take the two issues there. It is not necessarily the case that the MoD will have records o...

I am not sure whether the Minister confirmed that, whatever happens with the impact of this amend...

I am pleased to confirm that the crediting and the easement will continue post-2016.

Can the Minister also confirm whether the Bill, if it becomes law as drafted, will have a regress...

I will not answer what could in practice be a huge review of everything to make a hard statement ...

My Lords, I thought this was short, sweet and simple. It is now long and less simple but still ve...

It is a little early to get into the practicalities, but I am sure that we can arrange, one way o...

I thank the noble Lord. What I would love to see—I know that this has been done in the past becau...

Moved by

Baroness Turner of Camden

10: Clause 2, page 2, line 2, at end insert “and i...

My Lords, this amendment is about the level of the full rate of the single state pension. As we k...

My Lords, as my noble friend said, I have an amendment which is very similar to hers. It is worde...

I support my noble friends Lady Turner and Lord Whitty. The pension letter that I receive reads a...

My Lords, perhaps I may raise a point about the level of the single-tier pension, and couple it w...

My Lords, by tabling and moving these two amendments my noble friends have done the Committee in ...

My Lords, the amendments relate to the single-tier pension. I have to confirm that the noble Lord...

I understand that point, but what does that do to the argument that this is all about having a ve...

Despite the guarantee credit not changing a lot, there is roughly a halving of the overall relian...

I think the Minister may be offering a rather dramatic understatement. It is not an elimination; ...

My Lords, the guarantee credit does go down in absolute terms. It is already a small percentage o...

I am very grateful to the Minister for his offer to write to all Members of the Committee. Will h...

Yes; I am trying to get letters out at great speed. I am expecting to sign letters relating to th...

I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate, which I found extremely interesting....

Moved by

Baroness Hollis of Heigham

11: Clause 2, page 2, line 5, at end insert—

My Lords, this is an amendment about multiple jobs below the lower earnings limit, LEL. There are...

My Lords, I support Amendment 11. It is always a great pleasure to follow my noble friend Lady Ho...

I hesitate to follow those two powerful speeches, but I wanted to ask the Minister a question aro...

My Lords, I shall not detain the Committee long except to give my support to this. It is quite in...

My Lords, in engaging with this issue, your Lordships’ Committee has had the benefit of comprehen...

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, for tabling this amendment on an issue which I know is o...

The Minister said that the numbers were small, which is to restate the 50,000 figure. I thought t...

My Lords, as I said even before the noble Baroness intervened, even though the numbers today are ...

I understand the argument the Minister is making, but let us suppose that the woman described by ...

I accept that. This is for low-paid households. That is what universal credit is. There will be s...

The Minister proffers universal credit as a solution, but as I understand it, universal credit wi...

The noble Lord is exactly right. It goes to the point of what we are discussing. It would get you...

That applies if someone is in one job and £1 below the PTT for these purposes; they will still be...

That is the issue about whether one wants to introduce this kind of system across for mini-jobs.<...

We already have. All my lifetime, I think, we have had exactly the same cliff edge between those ...

Clearly, under universal credit, there would be a crediting arrangement for everyone within that ...

Before the Minister moves off the question of the data, the fundamental point about the zero-hour...

The previous estimate for zero-hour contracts—which is what we are talking about—was that there w...

I am extremely grateful to everybody who contributed, including the Minister. The debate was very...

My Lords, I cannot leave that unchallenged. People will have inherited rights, including credits,...

I hope that the Minister is right but I do not believe that he is. It is very unlikely that the U...

Moved by

Baroness Hollis of Heigham

12: Clause 2, page 2, line 5, at end insert—

My Lords, I apologise to the Committee that I want to raise another substantial issue. After this...

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 23, which is in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Bro...

My Lords, there are three amendments that are closely related, of which this is the first. I welc...

Why does the Minister think that the courts would not support us in having transitional arrangeme...

My question is slightly different, but perhaps the Minister could answer them both at once. Are t...

Yes, it is a net figure. On the legal position, clearly the noble Baroness will remember that we ...

Pension credit.

Perhaps I can make sure that the noble Baroness is briefed on that outside the Committee. The que...

My Lords, I support the Government's position on this, as I think we all do, but what will be the...

Because we can at that point tell those married women exactly what they will be getting. The diff...

I was talking about someone who had cared for her grandchild before the credits were introduced.<...

Okay. On the specific case of someone who has 30 years and wants to get 35, that is part of the i...

Thank you. I would like to push the Minister on the comments made by my noble friend Lady Sherloc...

Moved by

Baroness Hollis of Heigham

13: Clause 2, page 2, line 5, at end insert—

My Lords, I will be pretty brief.

Until the Bill comes into force, a married woman would qu...

My Lords, I shall speak briefly on this amendment. I was exceedingly brief last time, but since t...

My Lords, I have already set out the Government’s position on the issue of the ability of one ind...

My Lords, when I used the example of Jack and Jill, I was not asking whether it was correct. Unle...

I am sorry, I was not referring to the Jack and Jill question; I was referring to the second exam...

My Lords, my noble friend was referring to Jack and Jill. I assumed when I read this that HMRC, w...

Moved by

Baroness Hollis of Heigham

14: Clause 2, page 2, line 5, at end insert—

This amendment is the last in the series and is, I hope, equally short.

Some dozen years ag...

I support what my noble friend has just been saying; nobody likes being dumped. I do not know whe...

My Lords, I will avoid the issue of divorce rates because I am aware of the quagmire in which I w...

My Lords, the Minister is absolutely right to say that it is a problem for late divorcees, as it ...

Moved by

Lord McKenzie of Luton

15: Clause 2, page 2, line 11, at end insert—

“...

This amendment moves us into somewhat gentler waters. The amendment calls for a strategy to impro...

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord McKenzie for giving us the opportunity to touch on this is...

I thank the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, for this amendment. I hope that I shall be able to offer s...

Before I do, will the Minister comment on the issue of universal credit being just a class 3 cred...

They are all class 3 in universal credit.

And JSA?

JSA is, I think, already a class 3, is it not? I have a comprehensive list of national insurance ...

I am grateful to the Minister. I think that I have the list, which probably came from the same so...

The principle is not to allow access to contributory benefits through claiming another benefit. T...

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply and my noble friend Lady Sherlock for her questions....

Before my noble friend withdraws his amendment, the reason I asked the Minister generally at the ...

My Lords, I will be pleased to do that.

I am grateful to my noble friend and to the Minister. I am happy to read the record on this but, ...

Moved by

Lord McKenzie of Luton

18: Clause 3, page 2, line 19, at end insert—

“...

My Lords, as the Minister will have spotted, this is a device to continue the debate on the level...

My Lords, I can understand why the Minister might be reluctant to commit his Government—or indeed...

Before the Minister replies, the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, who has an amendment in this gr...

My Lords, the engagement of the guaranteed minimum 2.5% uplift in April this year saw the basic s...

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that reply. I did not expect him to announce that it ...

Moved by

Lord Whitty

19: Clause 4, page 2, line 32, at end insert “or, where the pers...

I shall speak also to Amendments 20 and 21, 24, and 41 to 43. We are now moving to a different im...

My Lords, I do not want to add anything to what my noble friend just said about public sector sch...

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, on his success in having a ticket for the 1...

My Lords, these amendments raise some issues that relate back to the previous Pensions Bill and, ...

My Lords, briefly, I commend my noble friend Lord Whitty and the noble Lord, Lord German, on tryi...

My Lords, I am content to join in commending my noble friend Lord Whitty and other noble Lords fo...

As a consequence of ending the additional pension for those reaching pension age after 2016, we a...

I thank the Minister and noble Lords who have intervened, largely in support of doing something a...