My Lords, I will speak briefly on this matter, but I acknowledge its importance and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Janke, for raising it. The amendment touches on a number of key issues that we have debated today: the long-term oversight of the Bill and its impact; fairness, particularly the consequences for women and part-time workers; and the need for decent, accessible information for workers on the value of their pensions. We have seen what happens when the effects of pensions legislation are not fully taken into account or monitored. It results in the Bill in front of us and all the related complex consequences we see here today.
On the gender pension gap, during the course of today, we raised specific concerns about the different impact some changes will have on women, who are more likely to have been part-time workers or to have taken time out of their careers for caring responsibilities, leaving them with interrupted contributions and interrupted years of service. The noble Baroness made this point all too clearly. What is particularly shocking about the gender pension gap is how little it is commonly talked about and recognised. I hope that this Committee stage will slightly raise the profile of the issue, but I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Janke, as well as my noble friend Lady Drake and others, has consistently raised it across the House and brought it to the Government’s attention at every opportunity.
The cross-party Women and Work All-Party Group has called on the Government to “take urgent action” to close the gap which, as it points out, has persistently
“remained at about 40% for the last five years”.
The recommendations of the all-party group include that:
“The Government should publish guidance directed at women on how to adequately prepare for retirement and encourage employers to calculate their gender pension contributions gap in order to compare this to their gender pay gap data.”
There is cross-party understanding of this issue and cross-party support for it has been raised in other forums. What is needed to tackle it adequately is political will. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.
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