Clause 3
Pensions Bill
11:00 am
Andrew Selous (Shadow Minister, Work & Pensions; South West Bedfordshire, Conservative)
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey for explaining his amendment. On the face of it, it is a pretty blunt instrument with which to try to bring about the effect that he has discussed.
We are moving the state retirement age up to the age of 68, so we would be talking about knocking out 18 years, potentially, of earning contributions. For many people at lower wage levels earlier on in their working life, these are very important years of contributions into their personal accounts pot—contributions that would make a significant difference to their lives in retirement. It is probably for that reason that the Equality and Human Rights Commission was worried when they saw this amendment and urged Committee members to vote against it, if it were pushed to a vote. In fairness, the hon. Gentleman has said that that is not his intention. He has raised the whole issue of when it pays to save and I think we will have further debates on this later on. I am happy to see that this is purely a probing amendment.