Pensions Bill [Lords]

Gavin Shuker Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Gregg McClymont]

The hon. Lady talks about real money, but the situation is clear: we are proposing £20 billion of savings starting in 2016; her Government are proposing £30 billion of savings. This measure would involve £1 billion a year over 10 years.

I understand that the hon. Lady has some actuarial experience, so she must understand that no sensible Opposition or, indeed, Government would put down in law that five years down the line they will still be committed to the same proposal. That is just common sense.

[Gavin Shuker (Luton South) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, as we talk about billions on one side of the House and billions on the other, the great irony is that public borrowing is up, when based on the Government’s predictions? If we are to talk about billions being out of place in terms of budgets, perhaps that is a good place for us to start.

[Gregg McClymont]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. The Government are very good at finding money when they want to, yet, on issues that affect a significant number of women—half a million—and given the anxiety and financial cost involved, they just seem unmoved.

Let us reflect a little on the kind of women we are talking about. According to the Library, the median total private pension of a fit 56-year-old woman is £9,100. That is not £9,100 a year; that is £9,100 in total. The same figure for a man is closer to £53,000—and not only that: these women are more reliant than men on the state pension. Often, it is a woman’s only source of pension income, and 40% of such women have no private pension savings at all—[Interruption.] No one suggests that that is the Government’s fault, and that is a pretty simplistic suggestion from a sedentary position by the Minister, the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Maria Miller), but the fact is that 40% of these women whom the Government are going to make wait between one year and 18 months have no private pension. The state pension is all they have.