Clause 245 - Power to amend enactments relating to pensions
Civil Partnership Bill [Lords]
2:30 pm
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Shadow Minister (Northern Ireland), Northern Ireland Affairs; Orkney and Shetland, Liberal Democrat)
The hon. Gentleman says from a sedentary position that the figure is 91 per cent. The figure that I used came from a Unison briefing that was given to me. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman can explain how he got to 91 per cent. At any rate, we are talking about a high level of provision as matters stand. The Unison briefing, which was supported by both Unison and Amicus, also shows that the figure for those funds that persist in not accepting same-sex couples is only 9 per cent.
The question is straightforward. It is one of equality of provision. That lies at the heart of the Bill. The amendment would place an obligation on all such schemes to make that provision. I am sorry to labour the point about the small number of pension funds that are affected but it is important because it means that the cost would be fairly minimal. It is difficult to ascertain exactly what that cost would be, but we can say with a degree of confidence that it would be fairly small.
A number of different groups are affected. One group that has been brought to my attention is that of those who previously contributed to public sector pension service schemes but were then contracted out as the service that they were providing was privatised or contracted out. The important point to note is that those people are often on the lowest of incomes, and any assistance that can be given to them would have a considerable—one might almost say, a disproportionate—effect. As I said on Second Reading about public service pensions, there is also a spin-off benefit in that if people are to obtain benefits from pension schemes in that way, they would obviously not be relying on state benefits such as pension credit and the like.