Clause 1 - Entitlement
State Pension Credit Bill [Lords]
12:30 pm
Ms Maria Eagle (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Minister for Disabled People), Department for Work and Pensions; Liverpool, Garston, Labour)
The hon. Gentleman has again said that the amendments are probing amendments, so I shall not assume that he wants them incorporated into the Bill. They would make slightly odd changes to it; they would not cause substantial problems if they were accepted. In fact, they would not be of much practical use at all. Amendment No. 16 would allow the Secretary of State flexibility to break the link between the state pension age and the qualifying age for pension credit. It is interesting that the hon. Gentleman should be so kind as to allow the Secretary of State such flexibility.
The hon. Gentleman rightly spotted—and, given that such action was taken under his Government, I would have expected him to—that we are moving gradually towards equalisation of the age at which basic state pension is received by men and women, which is 65 years. While that age is often referred to in common parlance on the street as the pension age, no one is obliged by the state to retire at 60 or 65. They are the ages at which basic state pension becomes payable. It is possible for people to defer taking basic state pension at those ages and consequently to receive a higher pension when they do retire.
I refer to when I was a lawyer. There is something known as the usual retirement age in most workplaces and many contracts of employment require people to retire at a certain age. However, there is no standardisation within industry, although terms may vary. There is nothing in law—in black and white—that says that a man must retire when he hits 65 or that a woman must retire when she hits 60. I accept the hon. Gentleman's point that we are moving towards equalisation in the age at which one receives a basic state pension, unless it is deferred.