Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Eilidh Whiteford and Steve Webb

Monday 18th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Steve Webb]

My hon. Friend is quite right. At the moment, people have to go to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs for their tax credits, to the local authority for their housing benefit, and to the Department for Work and Pensions for their jobseeker’s allowance. Having all this in a single system will improve take-up, and that is one of the things that the Gingerbread report did not factor in.

[Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)]

The Gingerbread report does, though, warn that working single parents are likely to lose a higher proportion of their income than other household types. Why does the Minister think that the children of lone parents should lose out?

[Steve Webb]

As I say, the report makes some assumptions that it accepts are not true. One of its assumptions is that there is no impact on take-up; it assumes 100% take-up before and after. We know that that is not true—that take-up is partial—and rolling all three benefits into one will improve take-up for the benefit of the children of lone parents.

Pensions Bill

Debate between Eilidh Whiteford and Steve Webb

Monday 17th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Steve Webb]

The hon. Gentleman raised a lot of questions, which it is his job to do obviously, but did not offer any solutions. He gave a case study of someone born between 1951 and 1953 and said how unfair the system was. I want to stress that the person he gave an example of will get exactly the pension she was expecting on exactly the day she was going to get it, so we have not changed anything about that person’s pension. We have, however, triple locked her pension, which is better than she might have expected under the last Government, so I think we have done the right thing.

Opposition Members drew a comparison between women in that age group and men born on the same day. Let us try a thought experiment: if we were to impose a sex change on all 700,000 women in this group, 95% of them would not thank us—financially at least, although perhaps for other reasons as well. Getting on for 95% of them would say, “Why did you do this to me? Yes, I might get another six quid a week, but I’ll have to wait two or three years longer for it.” That is not a good deal. We have worked out that it would take many of these women 30 years of retirement to recover what they lost through waiting longer for their pension.

The hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Bain) mentioned people with short life expectancies, as did the hon. Member for Inverclyde (Mr McKenzie). People who do not live long after pension age want to have their pension as early as possible, and again the last thing these women want is to get their pension when men do, because if they are not going to live long past the pension age, they will want their pension straight away, not later. The comparison with men born on the same day, therefore, is a false one. Overwhelmingly, these women will do better than a man born on the same day.

The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) made a thoughtful speech. I was impressed with almost all of it, expect the bit when she was pressed by Scottish colleagues about independence, at which point she became shifty and evasive. [Laughter.] I think that is just about parliamentary. It is clearly that independence would mess up pensions big time. The whole debate today has been about simplification and people knowing where they stand. How on earth would we splice together different countries’ national insurance records, cross-border deficits—

[Dr Whiteford]

rose—

[Steve Webb]

Just a minute. I am enjoying this too much.

How would we splice together different countries’ national insurance records and cross-border deficits? It would suddenly be an international scheme, so we would have to fund it immediately. This is a classic case of where we are better together. It is a simpler system and one where people know where they stand. Reinventing another system north of the border and then trying to splice it back together, particularly when so many people work north and south of the border, would create a great deal of disruption for people. We have spent the last five hours saying how we need to make things simpler.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Whiteford]

Does the Minister accept that Scotland is currently spending a smaller proportion of its GDP and revenues on pensions and social protections than the rest of the UK, so there is no question of the affordability of pensions? Does he also accept that on average people in Scotland live two years less than those in the rest of the UK?

[Steve Webb]

The hon. Lady raises the issue of pension spending in Scotland. She will know that Scotland is ageing at a faster rate than the rest of the UK, so the long-term spending pressures there are greater, and that would need to be addressed.

On the important issue of differences in life expectancy across different areas, clearly there are differences. I accept that, but across the board we are seeing a rising tide that is lifting all boats. For example, over the last quarter of a century, life expectancy at 65 has risen for men in the least privileged class by 21% and for those in the most privileged by 22%. In other words, we have seen significant increases across the board. Therefore, although we absolutely have to tackle the causes of differences in life expectancy, that cannot be a reason for paying pensions at a rate that was set a century ago.

My hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (David Mowat) got great praise from those on the Opposition Front Bench, which I hope will trouble him. He asked whether there is any analysis that underlies our decision; I can assure him that there is. He asked why we do not shunt all those with small pots to NEST—that was the proposition. We are talking about a pot limit of £10,000, so if all the small pots in a single year went to NEST, it would be become enormous and unbalance the market. Unless we wanted NEST to become huge, we would have to have a low pot size limit to make it work, with NEST becoming the home of small lost pots. However, if we did that, we would end up with significant fragmentation. In other words, with a low pot size limit, people might have something in NEST, a few thousand pounds they can do nothing with in another provider, their current pension—[Interruption.] What I can suggest to my hon. Friend, if I may—I have only a few minutes—is that he looks at our Command Paper, Cm 8402, which provides the analysis that underlies this, and if he is not satisfied after that, I am happy to have a coffee with him.

A number of other issues were raised in this debate. The hon. Member for Edinburgh East made an exhausting—sorry, exhaustive—speech. To be fair to her, she made some quite important points. She said that the single tier was not a windfall or a great leap forward. When she quizzed me in the Work and Pensions Committee, she said—and I quote—that it is not exactly “fandabbydosey”. She is right: it is not fandabbydosey; it is a simplification. It is about spending the money that we were going to spend, but better. She also said that SERPS was great and asked whether it would not have been better to continue with it. However, the fundamental problem is an unfunded pension promise. We already have a very large unfunded basic state pension, which will represent a rising share of national income even with these reforms. If we had added a massive unfunded SERPS to that, those promises would not have been kept. It is nice to think they would have been, but they would not. Future generations of working taxpayers would have had to pay so much tax to meet all those unfunded promises that the system would not have survived.

What we are doing in this Bill is being responsible for the long term. This system will cost more as a share of GDP than we spend now—significantly more—but the rate of growth will be slower. Crucially, given the long-term health, social and pension costs in the decades to come, a Government who are acting now—taking difficult decisions about things such as the state pension age, but giving people time to plan—are doing the right thing for the long term.

On the private pension side of things, automatic enrolment has started incredibly well. For example, McDonald’s—just one employer—has found that the opt-out rate among some of its low-paid employees is as low as 3%. From memory, that means that 10,000 lowly paid employees at McDonald’s are now in pensions, with fewer than three in 100 opting out. That is a real achievement. One of the reasons for that is the communications work we have done—the “I’m in” adverts that we see on the tube, on television and so on.

Communications was a key issue. We absolutely have to communicate this change effectively. We are doing fieldwork over the summer on how best to communicate it and to whom. We are working with partners such as Age UK, the Money Advice Service and the Pensions Advisory Service. The one constraint we have is that we cannot presume exactly what the scheme will look like, because the House will consider it. We cannot write to people now telling them what will happen, because it might not happen—it might be changed by the House. That is a frustration for us, but as soon as this is determined and settled, we will be out there.

I have long looked forward to the moment when I can say with pleasure, along with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, that I commend this Bill to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Pensions Bill (Programme)

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 83A(7))

That the following provisions shall apply to the Pensions Bill:

Committal

(1) The Bill shall be committed to a Public Bill Committee.

Proceedings in Public Bill Committee

(2) Proceedings in the Public Bill Committee shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion on Thursday 11 July 2013.

(3) The Public Bill Committee shall have leave to sit twice on the first day on which it meets.

Consideration and Third Reading

(4) Proceedings on Consideration shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour before the moment of interruption on the day on which those proceedings are commenced.

(5) Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the moment of interruption on that day.

(6) Standing Order No. 83B (Programming committees) shall not apply to proceedings on Consideration and Third Reading.

Other proceedings

(7) Any other proceedings on the Bill (including any proceedings on consideration of Lords Amendments or on any further messages from the Lords) may be programmed.—(Mr Syms.)

Question agreed to.

Pensions Bill (Money)

Queen’s recommendation signified.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 52(1)(a)),

That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Pensions Bill, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of:

(1) any expenditure incurred under or by virtue of the Act by the Secretary of State; and

(2) any increase attributable to the Act in the sums payable under any other Act out of money so provided.—(Mr Syms.)

Question agreed to.

Pensions Bill (Ways and Means)

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 52(1)(a)),

That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Pensions Bill, it is expedient to authorise:

(1) the imposition of charges to income tax in respect of benefits payable under or by virtue of the Act;

(2) the levying of charges under the Pension Schemes Act 1993 for the purpose of meeting expenditure of the Secretary of State under or by virtue of the Act;

(3) the imposition of levies under or by virtue of the Pensions Act 2004 in respect of past periods;

(4) the imposition of levies under or by virtue of the Companies (Audit, Investigations and Community Enterprise) Act 2004 towards the expenses of grant-aided bodies concerned with preparing guidance for pensions illustrations; and

(5) the payment of sums into the Consolidated Fund.— (Mr Syms.)

Question agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Eilidh Whiteford and Steve Webb

Monday 11th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Steve Webb]

We think that local authorities using their own stock to discharge their homelessness function should, wherever possible, house people in appropriately sized accommodation. If there are short-term problems in matching families to accommodation size, discretionary payments are available and can be used to support any shortfall a local authority may experience.

[Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)]

Half of all the temporary accommodation in Scotland is council-owned and the accommodation size reflects the existing housing stock and a varying range of needs in that sector. The discretionary housing budget in Scotland will not even cover the cost of keeping disabled people in specially adapted homes, so in no way will it cover the needs of people in temporary accommodation. Will the Government look again at this and reconsider what I can only assume is an unintended consequence or an oversight?

[Steve Webb]

The hon. Lady raises the important issue of the mismatch between the housing stock and families who need housing. That has gone unaddressed for decades and we now need to address it. We recognise that there may be particular issues in Scotland, partly with rurality and partly with the housing stock, and we are happy to continue having that conversation with hon. Members.

Pensions and Social Security

Debate between Eilidh Whiteford and Steve Webb

Wednesday 13th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Steve Webb]

I sympathise with the hon. Gentleman’s constituent, whose individual circumstances I do not know. Disability living allowance has not yet been reformed by this Government, so we have changed nothing about DLA. If his constituent believes that she has been wrongly assessed, I hope that she will have his support in appealing against that decision.

On working-age benefits, as the International Monetary Fund has said, strong fiscal consolidation is under way, and reducing the high structural deficit over the medium term remains essential. As we continue to face pressure on our national economy, we have had to take some tough decisions. There was, as my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd) has suggested, speculation about benefit freezes. It is true that we cannot afford to be as generous this year as we have been in the past. However, in the exercise of his discretion in the uprating of certain benefits, having regard to the national economic situation, the Secretary of State has found sufficient money to pay a 1% increase to those of working age on the main rate of jobseeker’s allowance or income support, as well as for housing benefit and the main rate and work-related activity component of employment and support allowance.

[Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)]

Has today’s news that inflation is set to stay very high for the next few years encouraged the Minister to rethink in any way this real-terms cut in working benefits?

[Steve Webb]

The rate of CPI has been 2.7% for four consecutive months. We were aware of the level of inflation when we made these judgments about 2013. Clearly, there are things we can do to help ourselves with the cost of living. For example, the cost of petrol is 10p a litre lower than it would have been if we had implemented the previous Government’s escalator; council tax bills, which are a huge cost of living for many people, have been frozen in many places for three years; and people in low-wage work will receive a substantial income tax cut in April. Those measures will all help people with the cost of living.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Eilidh Whiteford and Steve Webb

Monday 28th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)]

1. What estimate he has made of the number of households in Scotland affected by the new under-occupancy rules for housing benefit.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)]

The social sector size criteria, which will be introduced from April, will align housing benefit rules for those living in social sector accommodation with those already applied to claimants living in the private rented sector. We estimate that around 80,000 households in Scotland could be affected.

[Dr Whiteford]

The vast majority of tenants affected by this policy have no realistic prospect of finding a smaller, cheaper house. It also has many implications for devolved policy areas. Will the Minister ask the Secretary of State to show his respect for the Scottish Parliament by appearing in person before its Welfare Reform Committee?

[Steve Webb]

Obviously, the impact of housing benefit policy, which is a matter for the UK Parliament, will be different in different parts of the country. I have been to the Scottish Parliament and talked to the Deputy First Minister about welfare reform and we keep a dialogue open with our colleagues in Scotland.

Housing Benefit Entitlement

Debate between Eilidh Whiteford and Steve Webb

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Westminster Hall

[Steve Webb]

Again, the hon. Lady is talking from a sedentary position. She cannot control herself. On the day that we have published yet another set of figures showing another fall in unemployment and record growth in employment, she asks, “Where is the work?” The myth that there are no jobs available when we have more people in employment than ever before needs to be countered.

For some people, taking a job or working extra hours is an important part of the solution. It has been mentioned that taking in a lodger or a sub-tenant is not an option for some people, but for many it will be. The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) said that that might be an issue. In general, housing associations and social landlords should allow orderly sub-tenancies—a person cannot just take someone in and tell the landlord after the event. There has to be a strong reason to refuse such an option. The presumption is that it can be done, so it is part of the mix.

I had a constituent who was a single person living in a three-bedroom social housing accommodation. She had a letter about under-occupation, so she phoned me up. She said that she had a brother and sister-in-law who could live with her. That is a better use of the housing stock; it meets their housing need and covers the shortfall. Such improved use of the housing stock benefits us all.

I want to address discretionary housing payments, which were raised by the hon. Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey) in her thoughtful contribution. The hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas) also mentioned discretion. We are being asked to do contradictory things here. Where people have identified groups such as foster carers or people with major disability adaptations to their property, rather than central Government defining exactly what that means in every case, we have allocated the money that we think is needed to deal with the problem and given it to local authorities to respond on a case-by-case basis.

We think that such local discretion is right, but we have been asked to give local discretion, except in every such case also to have an absolute right to make a discretionary housing payment or to exempt people. That is the tension. There are all sorts of individuals whom we might think should be exempt. Trying to sit down and write a regulation or a statutory instrument to define exactly who all those people are does not work, which is why we have allocated discretionary housing payments—this year of £60 million and next year of £155 million—to local authorities. Let me take as an example Durham’s local authority. Last year, it had £177,000 of DHPs. Next year, it will be £880,000 of DHPs to respond to the sorts of people whom hon. Members have mentioned.

I want to respond to the issue about service personnel. I assume that the things that have been said are based on ignorance, rather than on an intent to mislead. Let us take the example of a married serviceman or woman. If one goes away, it does not matter, because there is still a one-bedroom need, so married service personnel are not an issue. Service personnel who live in service accommodation are also not an issue, because they are not social tenants on housing benefit.

We are talking here about service personnel who live in social rented accommodation with their parents and who are on housing benefit, so we are getting to narrower and narrower groups. If a member of the armed forces who is on a wage is living at home with his mum and dad, the benefit system says, “Ah, there is somebody in the house on a wage.” We expect that person to pay up to £70 a week towards the rent—it is called a non-dependant reduction. When the serviceman or woman goes to the front line, and if they are away for a long period, we no longer treat them as a non-dependant in the household, so we no longer deduct £70 from the housing benefit. When a young person goes away to fight for a long period, the parents’ housing benefit will in general go up. That is not the story that the Labour party has been putting out today.

We have been asked about foster carers. We think that the discretionary housing money that we have made available will assist around 5,000 foster carers. Let us bear in mind, though, that this is not all foster carers. I am talking about foster carers who might be in social rented accommodation, on housing benefit and in need of a spare bedroom, so a subset of all fosterers. Of course the fostering organisations would prefer a total exemption; I accept that. Failing that, their estimate is that these are about the right numbers of people, and we have had meetings and discussions with the fostering organisations.

The important issue of children was raised. The majority of people who are affected by this measure do not have dependent children. We are generally talking about older people. None the less, the position of families with children is important. It was suggested that two teenagers of the same gender should not be expected to share a bedroom. I do not follow that argument. I shared a bedroom with my brother until we were 18, and I do not think that it did us any harm. At a time when we have a great shortage of affordable accommodation, I cannot see what the problem is with older teenagers of the same gender sharing a bedroom.

An important question has been asked about whether DHPs are temporary or permanent. In the past, DHPs were a temporary fix. If someone had a short-term problem, they needed a bit of DHP to bail them out and then they moved or did something about it. Under the new system, DHPs can be for the long term, because some situations will not change. If someone lives in a house that has been substantially adapted, that will not change. Local authorities are getting revised guidance and will have to think about DHPs differently, because some people need longer-term certainty, as has been properly said.

The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan said that we had a size mismatch, and indeed we do. When a council is doing something about it—building houses to match the housing need—the hon. Lady asks how I can possibly think that that is a good thing.

[Dr Whiteford]

Will the Minister give way?

[Steve Webb]

I have just 60 seconds to go. When councils build houses of the right size to match housing need, they should be applauded and not condemned.

The hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) said that we need to manage over-occupation and under-occupation. We have had decades to do something about that, but nothing has happened. Some housing associations have welcomed the opportunity to look at the housing allocations to make better use of the precious resource of social housing. I fully accept that there will be disruption as a result of this measure, which is why we have a two-year programme looking at all this work, evaluating the impact and publishing the research. If we need to make changes to the system as we go because there are perhaps groups or impacts that we have not thought of, we will be in a position to do that. The matter will be thoroughly researched, and we will publish the results. At a time when we need to save money, being fairer to people in the social sector and the private sector and tackling overcrowding as well as under-occupation is a fair way to reduce the spending deficit that we were handed by the Opposition.

State Pension Reform

Debate between Eilidh Whiteford and Steve Webb

Monday 14th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Steve Webb]

I had the great pleasure of joining my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State at Asda this morning—when he caught up on a bit of his shopping—and meeting shop workers who had just been automatically enrolled by Asda. It was fascinating talking to them, because some were in the scheme already, but many were not. Those who had been auto-enrolled were going to stay in, and one said, “It’s not that much money. To be honest, I drink more than that in the pub over a month.” People are being brought into workplace pensions. We do not want them opening their newspapers and being told, “Don’t bother saving, because you’re just going to be means-tested.” We believe that we have dealt with that problem today, which will make auto-enrolment work as well as state pension reform.

[Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)]

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has said today that the proposals will mean

“a cut in pension entitlements for most people in the long run.”

I am also concerned that they touch on public sector pensions and other areas of devolved competence. Will the Minister ensure that his Department engages in constructive technical discussions with the Scottish Government on the transitional process?

[Steve Webb]

I have written to the devolved Assemblies and the Scottish Parliament about our announcement today. On the hon. Lady’s question about costings, let me say that for the next couple of decades or so we will be spending pretty much the same as now—it is within the same cost envelope—but we will be getting the bill down for younger workers by the middle of the century. It will not be down relative to today—the share of national income going on pensions will be substantially bigger than today—but it will not be rising quite as fast. We are ensuring that workers in their 20s will be automatically enrolled so that they have a savings culture as well as state pension.

Pensions and Social Security

Debate between Eilidh Whiteford and Steve Webb

Thursday 23rd February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Steve Webb]

The right hon. Gentleman rightly says that the consumer prices advisory committee is looking at how owner-occupiers’ housing costs can be included in CPI—as he will appreciate, rent is already included in CPI. The committee has rejected the retail prices index approach in respect of mortgage interest and is looking at a range of alternatives. I understand that it is due to report in early 2013. I have said consistently that we will look at what it comes up with. Each year, as he knows, the Secretary of State must take a view on the general increase in prices, and will certainly have regard to the work of the committee in doing so.

[Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)]

I am grateful to the Minister for addressing one issue that I wanted to raise with him, but I am also concerned that pensioners’ and disabled people’s experience of inflation is dependent on their heating costs, which was one of the main drivers of inflation last year. My concern is that CPI is not a good measure of people’s experience of inflation, because those people experience higher inflation than the rest of us, who go out during the day.

[Steve Webb]

The hon. Lady is right that any single inflation measure will not capture the full diversity of circumstances. One of the main differences between RPI and CPI is that RPI includes mortgage interest, which is largely irrelevant to most pensioners. By excluding mortgage interest from its basket of goods, the CPI gives more weight to the things on which pensioners spend their money. Other things being equal, CPI will therefore tend to be a better fit with the spending patterns of pensioners.

The hon. Lady is right that rising fuel prices are an important issue. That is one reason why instead of simply doing our legal duty by the poorest pensioners, which was to uprate the pension credit by earnings only, which was 2.8%, we chose to do a full pass-through of the £5.30 basic state pension rise to the poorest pensioner on pension credit precisely because they have faced the pressures she describes. We are aware of that point and have sought to do something in this uprating measure to address it.

Pensions Bill [Lords]

Debate between Eilidh Whiteford and Steve Webb

Tuesday 18th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Steve Webb]

Let me address that directly. What is striking as soon as one looks at the evidence on longevity is just how far behind the curve we are. When the male state pension age was set at 65, it was not so much a case of Lord Hutton writing reports on pensions as a case of Len Hutton striding out at the Oval. That was the era that we were talking about. In that almost 100 years, there have been incredible increases in life expectancy, yet the male state pension age will still be 65 for another seven years. That shows how far behind the curve we are.

The views of Lord Turner were cited by the hon. Member for Cumbernauld and by others, with some suggestion that we are breaching the Turner consensus. However, Lord Turner has breached the Turner consensus, if I may say so. He said in a news interview a couple of years ago, and the world has moved on even since then:

“If I was redoing my report I would be more radical, arguing for an even faster increase in the state pension age.”

That is exactly what we are doing, in line with the Turner consensus.

[Dr Whiteford]

Does the Minister accept that although longevity has increased, healthy working life has not kept pace with longevity, and that there is a serious issue, especially for the particular group of women under discussion, many of whom will not be in the best of health in their late 50s and early 60s? That is one of the reasons why shifting the goalposts twice for this group of women is having such a disproportionate impact.

[Steve Webb]

The issue of health is certainly important. Almost all the figures that have been quoted through the debate assume that the women whose pension age is being delayed will have no money. If, as the hon. Lady rightly says, they are unable to work because of ill health and the household has no other resources, they will get a significant amount of that money through employment and support allowance and other benefits.

Clearly, there are differences between individual groups and, as the hon. Lady and the hon. Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams) pointed out, between different parts of the country, but if we look at England, Wales and Scotland, for example, in terms of life expectancy at 65, in England for men since 1981 life expectancy has increased by seven years. In Wales for men it has increased by seven years, and in Scotland for men it has increased by seven years. For women, each of those figures is six years, respectively. So although there are differences, there have been substantial increases across the board.

Yes, there is big variation. I accept that point, but there have been increases across the board and we cannot say that because they have not happened for every individual in every part of the country and in every social group, we will do nothing. That is what got us into the present mess in the first place.

Pensions Bill [Lords]

Debate between Eilidh Whiteford and Steve Webb

Monday 20th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Dr Whiteford]

Will the Minister give way?

[Steve Webb]

In a little while; I want to make some progress first.

The Bill’s third key element—which, again, voting it down would stop—is making judges put some money into their pensions. I think that Members were rather shocked when they discovered that the taxpayer put 32% of a judge’s salary into a judge’s pension, and that the judge in respect of their own pension entitlements puts a big fat juicy zero. This Bill will correct that. If the Opposition succeed in voting it down, they will stop us doing so. We need to make progress with the Bill, therefore. Second Reading is about the principles, and we stand firmly behind them.

In the debate, the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne)—who has rejoined us now—glossed over the auto-enrolment provisions and said the Labour party will vote against the Bill. That would leave £30 billion to be found, as that is what the Bill would put into the Exchequer. When asked where the money would come from, he replied, “Well, we’d move a bit faster on age 67” and then added, in brackets as it were, “in the 2030s.” For a former Chief Secretary to the Treasury to tell us that the way to find money for a problem in the next Parliament is to look to somewhere in the 2030s sounds vaguely familiar. The answer is always, “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow”—

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve Webb]

Interestingly, the right hon. Gentleman and his colleague the shadow Minister are saying two different things. The right hon. Gentleman knows that the sum for the changes up to 2020 is £10 billion. His shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves), says we should delay to 2020 and find £10 billion while he wants to vote against the Bill and find £30 billion at some time in the 2030s. I think the House knows where we stand on that.

I am grateful to those Members who took the trouble to address auto-enrolment, but the shadow Secretary of State glossed over that issue. He said we ought to enrol at £5,000, which is not the right figure, but let us accept it for the sake of argument. He then said we should not put up the threshold. Therefore, under his scheme with the threshold at £5,000, someone who earned £5,100 would be auto-enrolled on that £100, and as we start at 1%, they would have to put in £1—not £1 a week, but £1 a year, or 2p a week. That is what will happen if we do not let this Bill make progress. We will be requiring employers and employees to put 2p per week into the employee’s pension. Does the right hon. Gentleman think that might in any sense undermine the credibility of our proposals?

[Dr Whiteford]

I agree with the Minister that this issue has been glossed over in today’s debate, but in our debate on welfare reform last week great store was set by so-called mini-jobs. It seems to me that those are exactly the jobs that will not be included in auto-enrolment. Can the Minister understand why that fuels concern that a mini-job is simply a euphemism for a low-paid, low-skilled job that keeps women trapped in poverty?

[Steve Webb]

The hon. Lady will be aware of the national insurance floor of roughly £100 a week. Many of these mini-jobs, as she describes them, will be below that and would not be covered by auto-enrolment anyway, but once such people are above the threshold for national insurance, they will be able to opt in should they want to. Moreover, if a mini-job occurs later in life and they have some track record of a connection with pensions, they might well have a conversation with their employer about opting in and triggering the employer contribution.

State Pension Age (Women)

Debate between Eilidh Whiteford and Steve Webb

Wednesday 11th May 2011 Westminster Hall

[Steve Webb]

We had to take a judgment about not affecting people who were within a few years of retirement, those who were 58, 59 or so and were set to get their pensions in their early 60s. We took the view that change for them would be too soon, which is why nothing at all changes before 2016. However, having gone past that initial point, the crucial group—the one-month cohort, which a number of Members have mentioned—will, assuming that the Bill gets Royal Assent this summer, get six years and eight months’ notice of the change. I accept that notice, which has been mentioned by several Members, is the key issue.

[Dr Whiteford]

The issue is not only the pace of change. It is the context of a lifetime of low pay and inequality faced by many women, and the old-age problems that are a cumulative effect of that. The Government had an opportunity here to tackle women’s inequality in old age, but so far they have, instead, arbitrarily targeted women born in 1954.

[Steve Webb]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising the position of women in the pension system. Assuming that some of the pension reform proposals in the Green Paper that we published last month go ahead, for example the single flat-rate decent state pension, the group of women most affected by this change would be the first group of women to benefit, and potentially very substantially. At the moment, women draw a state pension of £40 a week, on average, less than men, but under the single-tier pension proposal, which I have been very involved in introducing, many women would be the main beneficiaries.

Various Members have raised the important issue of women whose pension rights have been hampered by time spent bringing up children or caring for relatives, and under the single-tier pension proposal a year spent at home with children or a relative will be worth just as much to a state pension as a year spent running a FTSE 100 company. So much do I take the view—in government as I did in opposition—that the work that men and women do, whether paid work or bringing up a family, is of equal value, that for the first time we are proposing that that be manifest in the pension system, and that will be transformative, particularly for women.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Eilidh Whiteford and Steve Webb

Monday 14th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Steve Webb]

My hon. Friend is right that of the 2.6 million women who are affected, 33,000 were born in the vintage months that he describes. That group will have to delay for up to two years before they receive their state pension. One reassurance I can offer is that those women—and indeed he, should he find himself in that situation—will be eligible to apply for jobseeker’s allowance or employment and support allowance, so they will not be left destitute.

[Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)]

The Turner commission recommended a 15-year lead-in for such changes. Those women who were born in 1954 will not benefit from that. Does the Minister think that fair?

[Steve Webb]

The hon. Lady raises the important point that notice periods are important. The challenge we faced was that the time scale for raising state pension ages that we inherited was staggeringly leisurely. The Conservative party manifesto and the coalition agreement made it clear that we would move faster. The state pension age for men was set at 65 a century ago—I think we need to move faster.