My Lords, I do not want to detain the Committee for any length of time here but my noble friend has raised a very important issue of principle that the Committee should consider very carefully. I hope that at some later point the whole House might as well.
In relation to the Amendment 31A moved by my noble friend Lord Browne, the Minister, quite sensibly, prayed in aid the existing rules and said that the provisions simply reflected that. In essence, that was his argument for continuity. Here, he is proposing something quite different—he is proposing to take away a freedom and a choice that have existed for some considerable time from people who want to defer claiming their state pension. We should not do that unless there is a compelling reason for so doing. The principle of choice for people retiring should be preserved. They might want to, for whatever reason—and maybe the Minister would not agree with the reason—take their deferred pension as a lump sum. I cannot think of any good reason why we should not allow them to continue to do that. It cannot have any overall implications for public spending so there cannot be any cost to the Treasury.
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I agree with the right reverend Prelate. We should be doing all we can, given the scale of the demographic changes that have taken place in our society, to encourage people to consider deferring taking their state pension. It could well be that one of the arguments that some people would find attractive is that they would be entitled to a lump sum if they were to exercise that choice. Sadly, in this country we do not have a savings culture. It is a great shame, but we do not and we should not pretend that we do. I accept that for many noble Lords the sums we are talking about here as a lump sum would be very small but for many pensioners they could be very significant. Why are we taking away from pensioners the opportunity, at this point in their lives, of having something that looks like a capital sum, which they can choose to spend in whatever way they like? Why on earth would we consider that to be a rational thing for Parliament to do at this time?
I do not know the figures but maybe the Minister does. How many pensioners who exercise the choice to defer their state pension claim a lump sum? That would be good to know. My sense is that it would be quite a significant number but I would like to hear the number from the Minister. This is an issue of principle and I do not think this House, or Parliament, should take away from pensioners the option of taking their deferred state pension as a lump sum if they choose to do so. That should be their choice and we should enshrine it in legislation.