Is my hon. Friend aware that considerable hardship is falling upon a woman who has no children, who might have been living with a man for 20 or 30 years, who finds that she has to live and endure on the benefit for only the one, for the man? Is it not extraordinarily hard that women in those circumstances should suffer as a consequence of the absurdities of the divorce law?

Secondly, is it not appalling that a woman who has been living with a man for decades should find in the evening of her life that, because of the disability of one of them having been married, she is not entitled to an old-age pension? Should not a more compassionate attitude now be taken towards this problem, which is very widespread?