‘(1) The Government shall conduct a review in relation to women with a limited national insurance contribution record, who relied on a husband’s national insurance contributions, and would under previous arrangements have accrued a benefit based on such spousal contributions.

(2) The review shall determine the costs and benefits of permitting women within 15 years of state pension age as at 6 April 2016 to retain their accrued rights if this would provide a better outcome than under the state pension provided for by this Act.

(3) Such a review shall be conducted within six months of Royal Assent of this Act and a copy of the report must be laid before Parliament.

(4) The review shall consider whether similar provision should be made in relation to sections 9 and 10 of this Act.’.—(Sheila Gilmore.)

Brought up, and read the First time.

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

New clause 6—State pension entitlement for women born between 6 April 1951 and 5 April 1953

‘(1) Women born between 6 April 1951 and 5 April 1953 have the right to choose to receive their state pension and associated benefits under the new state pension system, set out in Part 1, from its introduction.

(2) The Government must ensure information about the full range of entitlements under the old state pension rules and the new state pension is available to allow women in subsection (1) to make a comparison of total weekly income.

(3) The responsibility for making a choice under subsection (1) lies fully with the individual.’.

New clause 8—Review in relation to women born on or after 6 April 1951

‘(1) The Secretary of State shall conduct a review to determine whether all women born on or after 6 April 1951 should be included within the scope of the new state pension arrangements established by this Act.

(2) The Secretary of State must prepare and publish a report on the review within six months of Royal Assent of this Act and must lay a copy of the report before Parliament.’.

New clause 13—Pensionable age: differential effect in England, Wales and Scotland

‘Part 2 of this Act shall not come into force until the Secretary of State has laid a report before both Houses of Parliament containing an assessment of the differential effect and impact of the pensionable age in England, Wales and Scotland due to varying levels of life expectancy and gross value added.’.

Amendment 1, page 10, line 1, leave out Clause 20.

Amendment 35, page 11, line 34, Clause 24, leave out ‘An’ and insert

‘With the consent of the trustees, an’.

Government amendments 2 and 3.

Amendment 37, page 11, line 40, Clause 24, at end insert—

‘(c) a scheme in respect of any of its terms which relate to persons protected under the terms of—

(i) the Electricity (Protected Persons) (England and Wales) Pension Regulations 1990;

(ii) the Electricity (Protected Persons) (Scotland) Pension Regulations 1990;

(iii) the Electricity (Protected Persons) (Northern Ireland) Pension Regulations 1992;

(iv) the Railway Pensions (Protection and Designation of Schemes) Order 1984;

(v) the London Transport Pensions Arrangements Order 2000;

(vi) the Coal Industry (Protected Persons) Pensions Regulations 1994; or

(vii) the nuclear industry employees protected by Schedule 8 of the Energy Act 2004.’.

Government amendment 4.

Amendment 36, page 12, line 10 [Clause 24], at end insert—

‘“trustees or managers” has the meaning given in section 178 of the Pension Schemes Act 1993 and regulations made thereunder.’.

Government amendments 14 to 20.

Amendment 34, page 79, line 5, Schedule 14, leave out paragraph 11.

Government amendments 21 to 24.

One of the issues that has come up in the course of all the debate about the single-tier pension is the decision that the Government have taken to bring to an abrupt end to the provisions that previously existed for women in particular—I shall talk primarily about women, although men could be in this position—to be able to derive a pension or years towards a pension from the contributions of their spouse. That dates back to a different world. When the state pension system was set up in the post-war period, there was an assumption that the standard pattern for married people was that one person, normally the man, would be the main breadwinner, and the woman would spend considerable periods out of the labour force, and perhaps not even work at all after marriage. Indeed, although they were about to go, there were still marriage bars on certain types of employment, so time out of employment was not just a question of choice; it was sometimes a question of necessity.

Things have changed and, although it can still be a necessity, for many women the amount of time out of employment can be very short. The arrangement in the original proposals was that a woman could receive a derived pension from her husband’s contributions—currently approximately 60% of the full state pension—or receive benefit if she was widowed or divorced. For someone widowed after retirement who was receiving only the 60% pension—sometimes referred to as the married couples pension when both bits are put together—it would be increased to a full single person’s pension, regardless of whether she had made contributions during her working life. For those who are divorced, there is currently provision in the system to inherit and carry over a spouse’s contribution record if it is better than one’s own. That can be beneficial to women, and some men, in building up a pension record.

Other changes that have taken place include crediting certain types of contribution that are not entirely financial. As well as the credits people receive during periods of unemployment when they are claiming benefit, successive Governments have introduced credits for periods of child care and for caring for other relatives, and that can make up some gaps. There are still some people—a decreasing number, without a doubt—who will end up in a position where they do not build up sufficient contributions in their own right. If the right to obtain these so-called derived benefits is taken away, there will be a group of people, primarily women, who, post-2016 when the new arrangements come in, will have less than they would have expected to get before that date. They will be in a worse position than they would have been previously, and that will have all sorts of consequences.

People have reasonable expectations of the rules. Age UK gave an example of someone who had specifically asked the Department for Work and Pensions for advice on whether she should start making contributions relatively late in her working life. She was told not to do so, because she would not be able to work to receive nearly as much as she would be getting in any event. That advice was given in good faith and at the time she accepted it in good faith, but it is now too late for her to make up the difference.

The Government estimate that there are 40,000 women in this position. I am not sure whether there is certainty about that figure, because I do not know whether a full survey has been carried out. However, 40,000 is not a huge number. New clause 5 asks for a full review to ascertain how many women are in this position and what the cost would be of allowing them to continue to benefit from derived rights for a transition period—it would not be for ever.

Does the hon. Lady have any idea how much money, on average, these ladies might be losing?

I do not know off the top of my head, which is why I am asking for a review. We might be talking about 40,000 women who clearly will not be getting a full pension, but certain of them will have made some contributions; it is not that they will have no contributions. The Work and Pensions Select Committee looked at this and recommended transitional arrangements for those within 15 years of the state pension age when the new arrangements came into force. It is not for ever, it would not go on and on, with a very long tail; but it would provide for those who quite reasonably made plans on the basis of particular expectations.

I have heard two arguments from the Government. The first was a generalisation about how the world had changed. Yes, of course it has changed, and we are not talking about most or all women doing this for ever. Just saying, “Well, the world’s changed”, is not a good enough answer to the fact that some women will suffer detriment if transitional arrangements are not put in place. The second argument was that apparently—I am not sure any figures have been offered up—an increasing number of these women were living abroad. It conjured up images of women much younger than their husbands and living abroad—I do not know whether the Minister had Filipino brides in mind. Nevertheless, it cannot be beyond the ingenuity of the DWP to ensure that people do not take undue advantage. Like I said, these arrangements would not last for ever.

There are a variety of reasons why somebody might not have contributed. They might have made a positive choice not to contribute or they might have been doing voluntary or care work before credits were allowed or without appreciating that they were allowed—we know that a lot of people are eligible for carer’s credits who have not claimed them. There are a variety of reasons. Others will have been in very low-paid or short-hours part-time work and earning below the level of contribution, and they might have concluded that it did not matter too much because of the derived right.

We debated this matter in Committee and I hope that the Government will this time be prepared to accept my new clause. Then, when we have carried out the review, a decision could be made about whether to proceed with transitional arrangements.

I hope Sheila Gilmore will forgive me if I do not follow her line of debate, but we have less than 50 minutes left to deal with something that is complicated, important and a matter of justice.

I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister for saying in the Commonwealth that the Commonwealth is about fairness and justice, and I am going to argue for a significant review of what we do with overseas pensioners. I hope the House will forgive me for reading out a paragraph from Lord Hoffmann in the Carson case concerning regulation 5 of the Social Security Benefit (Persons Abroad) Regulations 1975:

“The general rule, subject to limited exceptions, has always been that social security benefits are payable only to inhabitants of the United Kingdom. A person ‘absent from Great Britain’ is disqualified: section 113(1) of the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992. But there is a power to make exceptions by regulation. Regulation 4 of the Social Security Benefit (Persons Abroad) Regulations 1975 (SI 1975/563) (deemed to have been made under the 1992 Act) makes such an exception for retirement pensions. But regulation 5 makes an exception to the exception. In the absence of reciprocal treaty arrangements, persons ordinarily resident abroad continue to be disqualified from receiving the annual increases.”

The House might expect that pensioners abroad who do not get the increases are the exception; were the House to think that, it would be wrong. Some 650,000 overseas pensioners get the increase, and they include pensioners in countries such as the United States and Jamaica. More than 500,000—it could be 530,000 or 570,000—do not. They are predominantly in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, India and Pakistan, with Yemen and Japan being two others in the top ten. No one can claim that there is rhyme or reason in that.

Before I was elected to this House, the then MP Julian Ridsdale had a debate in 1972 answered by the Minister, Paul Dean, who said that these matters were governed by reciprocal treaties and that the Government were keen on having such treaties. If the Prime Minister today were to invite various Government Departments to contribute to a whole of Government review—which is what I would ask for—he would find that the Foreign Office now says openly that it does not want reciprocal agreements, in part because some of the old dominions and Commonwealth countries provide increases to their pensioners in Britain without us agreeing to do the same thing there. That does not strike me as a good argument not to have reciprocal agreements; it strikes me as a good argument for having them. Were he to ask for this review, the Prime Minister would probably hear from the DWP, “Is this the year when it is a priority to give increases to those who are not resident in this country?”

The reason this is relevant to today’s debate is that the Secretary of State, in clause 20, purports to exclude overseas pensioners from getting increases under the new scheme except—although it does not quite say so—where regulations can be made that would allow them to do it; the exception to the exception. I will spare the House analysis of the provision in clause 18, which is too complicated even for me to be able to put across in a way that anyone else would understand. In clause 20, the Government are proposing deliberately to continue the discrimination against some of our overseas pensioners. There is no rhyme or reason. Being a member of the Commonwealth does not bring someone in or put them out, although it is what I call the old dominions who are affected.

The DWP might ask why we should do it now. The argument that Julian Ridsdale was putting forward in 1972 was about a far smaller number of people. If my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State were to say that 2% of our pensioners are abroad, that is a dramatically higher proportion than in 1972, and it will grow. People who will earn their rights to pensions in this country are a far more mobile population, both those coming here and those going out. We know that, with the expansion of the EU, those countries with whom we would not have necessarily claimed a very close connection over generations will come in. Without wanting to stir up some of the popular newspapers, the new members of the EU will not be excluded from getting increases in pensions, whether their people come here and work and earn entitlement or whether people who are resident in or nationals of our country go and live, for example, in Bulgaria or Romania. They will get the increases. Those who may have retired to South Africa shortly after the 1947 Pensions Act do not.

The reason is that, in 1947, we were not expecting to get inflation. If we did not have inflation, we would not have the problem. If the Government say that they will not provide exceptions to clause 20 and that no pensioner overseas will get an increase, at least we would have consistency. But that is not what the Minister is proposing. It might be helpful if he could confirm that either now, or if and when he comes to speak.

Does my hon. Friend know whether the requirement to uprate in the European Union countries is a European requirement that the Government can do nothing about or a Government choice?

The Government chose and Parliament endorsed that we would have free movement of people and of benefits in this sense, but the Secretary of State will no doubt be able to answer my right hon. Friend with greater certainty. The essential point is that as a country joins the EU—or even EFTA—the entitlement to increases in pensions comes with it.

When preparing my thoughts on this matter, I might have anticipated that the Prime Minister would say that he would give consideration to calls for a wider review of the issue. I might also have expected him to conclude that he was not minded to pursue such a review at this time. That is the gentlest form of saying no that I have come across.

I suspect that, as and when we extend voting rights to British nationals living overseas, either for a period of 15 years or for even longer, as many other countries do, our Members of Parliament who represent those overseas resident voters will start putting the pressure on, and that change will come. The Prime Minister might be anticipating that. He might see the sense and justice of such a change, but, given his position, he has to say no to a lot of popular causes. Perhaps the justice element for which is so rightly praised in the Commonwealth has not quite come to his mind yet.

In fact, I received a letter from the Prime Minister about half an hour ago confirming what I had anticipated. He has said that

“the case for not departing from the position of successive Governments is clear.”

I have already pointed out how the position has changed in respect of the reciprocal arrangements. His letter goes on:

“To do so would cost hundreds of millions of pounds at a time when the pressure on a welfare system is considerable and when we are asking many people who live in the UK to make sacrifices.”

That could be an argument for cutting off increases for all overseas pensioners, but that is not going to happen. The anomaly will continue. It has carried on from

1972 to 2013. If I am still here in 20 years’ time, will Ministers still be trotting out the same arguments that they used in 1972? I jolly well hope not.

I pay tribute to the leaders of the International Consortium of British Pensioners in Canada and Australia. They have had work done by Oxford Economics to make the case for the health care savings. We all know that the majority of costs to the national health service are incurred by people in the last years and weeks of their lives. Which of the people living overseas are the most likely to return to this country for their end-of-life health care? I suggest that it is those living in the United States, whose insurance might have run out and who cannot meet the costs, and people in Europe who might want to return to this country to be treated in a health service they know and in a language they are used to. I doubt that many people would come back from New Zealand, Australia, South Africa or Canada.

The health care question was what prompted us to call for the whole of Government review. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend Sir Roger Gale, who came with me last week when the Prime Minister very kindly gave us the opportunity to put some of these points to him.

My hon. Friend has already paid tribute to the leaders of the campaign in Canada and Australia. Jim Tilley has told us of the case of an English lady in Australia who is living on £6 a week. The rest of the money that she has to live on is provided by the Australian Government, because our Government cannot give it to her. Does that make my hon. Friend feel proud?

I find that shaming.

One of the reasons to be active in public service is to identify injustice and to work against it. It might take months, years or decades, but this is a fight for which I would like to see more support from the Opposition and from those on my own side. My hon. Friend has mentioned Jim Tilley. I want to mention John Markham, the director of public affairs for the International Consortium of British Pensioners, who is based in Toronto, in Canada. He has pointed out:

“Approximately 10% of all pensioners live abroad, roughly 1 million people. Of that million, 50% receive annual increases to their state pension, and the other 50% do not, solely based on country of residence.”

That arbitrary, historical decision is unjustifiable.

I am not going to quote back to the Minister what he said about this before he became a Minister. Some people have to go through that embarrassment, but I do not want to subject him to it. I will say, however, as we approach Remembrance Sunday and Armistice day, that the countries in which we have shared war memorials are those most likely to be affected. They are the countries whose people served in the former British empire and Commonwealth armies, and those people are the ones who are not getting the increase.

John Markham goes on to say:

“The recent select Committee on the new single tier Pension Bill declared it to be an anomaly that should be fixed.”

I have mentioned the Oxford Economics report. The Department for Work and Pensions might say that that was just a small survey, and that the benefits would take years to accrue. Well, the sooner we start, the better. The argument for doing it is not that it will pay this country, but that it is right.

I could go through the other arguments used by Julian Ridsdale, but there is restricted time for the debate, and it would be interesting to hear what the Labour Front-Bench team has to say. I know, too, that others wish to speak on this issue and to other amendments in the group. Let me declare the best judgment at the end of this debate. We will say no to clause 20, but we will not force a walk-through Division. That is a way of illustrating what we feel, without unduly taking up the House’s time, when Third Reading is also ahead of us. I hope the House will understand that.

I am pleased to follow Sir Peter Bottomley, who has spoken passionately about the importance of fairness and justice. I believe that those very same principles underlie the issue I want to raise this afternoon. I want to speak to my new clause 6, while confirming my support for new clause 8. Those new clauses both relate to the group of women who will not qualify for the single-tier pension, whereas men with the same date of birth will.

One of my constituents, Catherine Kirby, has been a passionate and tireless champion for women in her position. Understandably, she feels that she and others in her situation are faced with a dual disadvantage of being subject to an increase in state pension age under the 1995 Act, while being denied eligibility for the single-tier pension. Not all, but some of these women will be left with a lower weekly state pension compared with men of the same age. No wonder my constituent, like many others, believes this creates unnecessary and unjustifiable inequality and discrimination.

The Minister has said in the past that women in the position of my constituent should defer, but for those on low incomes who are unable to work and do not have a convenient pot of money, that is not an option. He has explained in the past that because the new system excludes additional benefits such as for bereavement, it is not possible for the Government to tell women what would be best for them. For some women, however, that is simply not relevant to their situation. They already know that they would be better off—by £15 a week, in Catherine’s case, which is significant.

The Minister has said that, over a lifetime, most of these women would get more than the average man with the same date of birth, but theoretical lifetime averages are simply irrelevant to the difficult financial situation faced by my constituents and others in the real world. It is their weekly pension income that matters, and I believe that that is what should occupy our attention as their representatives.

I will support Labour’s new clause 8, which calls for a review of whether all women born on or after 6 April 1951 should be included within the scope of the new pension arrangements. That is not my preferred option, however. Not all will definitely lose out, and I do not think we necessarily need a review to find a solution that works for the relatively small but important number of women who may lose out.

My new clause 6 simply gives these women the right to choose to receive their state pension and associated benefits under the new state pension system set out in part 1 from its introduction in April 2016, if they judge it to be in their best interest to do so. It would not require the Government to tell them what to do, merely to ensure that information about the full range of entitlements under the old state pension rules and the new state pension is available to allow women to make a comparison of total weekly income. The responsibility for making a choice would rest fully with the individual.

I believe this group of women deserve a much better deal, and if that means upgrading to the single tier, that should be permitted. If the Government do not do that, it will be an example of blatant discrimination. It would not be difficult to remedy the situation and it would make a huge difference to the women involved. This group of women certainly deserve better. They are the generation who campaigned for equality for women. They began their working lives being discriminated against; the Government can and should give them the right to be included in a new single-tier pension to ensure that they do not end their lives feeling discriminated against, as well.

Jim Tilley’s old friend, the British widow living in Australia on a frozen pension of less than £7 a week, is not a statistic. She is the difference between what is right and what is wrong. If this country cannot do what is right, I have to say that I feel a great sense of shame. The denial of the money to people who have in many cases served their country and fought for it—some of their friends and families have died for this country—and who have worked here and paid their taxes, is indefensible. Their case is morally right.

It cannot be right for a British expat living on one side of the Niagara Falls to have a frozen pension while, just across the water on the other side of the falls, in the United States, another pensioner is receiving an increase every year. It cannot be right that this country is prepared to pay benefits to all and sundry who come to the United Kingdom from wherever—from within or without the European Union—but continues to deny people who served this country the pension to which I believe they have a right. No one is seeking back payment, because that would be financially unrealistic, but I believe that the time has come when we must right this wrong.

The Prime Minister has defended the overseas aid budget, and I support him entirely in that. If this country, which is still one of the wealthiest in the world, cannot afford to pay some of the poorest people in the world the overseas aid that we are now paying, we ought to be ashamed of ourselves. However, if we cannot afford also to look after our own, we ought to have a deeper sense of shame.

I shall not press for a Division on the amendment. However, I hope very much that the message will go out from here to another place, and that their lordships will deal with this issue, because dealt with it must be.

I wholeheartedly support the amendment tabled by Sir Peter Bottomley and the hon. Member for

Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas). I think that there are injustices in the Bill that need to be addressed, and my amendment 35 seeks to do that as well.

The amendment returns us to the issue of the commitments that were given to people on privatisation. The Minister seemed to use a “divide and rule” tactic when he asked why I was taking the issue up purely on behalf of railway workers, as opposed to workers overall. There is a railway estate in my constituency, and I have taken an interest in the industry for nearly 40 years. I know what a sense of grievance exists among railway workers. The promises that they were given on privatisation are now being torn up by the Government. I do not like that “divide and rule” tactic—I want the same protection for all workers—but we can deal with the issue of railway workers tonight if the Government are so willing.

This is what John McGregor, the then Secretary of State, promised in 1993. He said:

“Existing employee rights will be protected by statutory orders made under the Railways Bill.”

He described those rights as “indefeasible”. He went on to say:

“There will in addition be specific safeguards, in franchise contracts, to cover the transfer of pension funds when a franchise changes hands…Orders for setting up new schemes, transferring funds and protection of existing employees will be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure in both Houses.

He gave that assurance to members of all parties in the House. He continued:

“Orders relating to schemes and funds will be the subject of statutory consultation with the trustees.”—[Hansard, 20 May 1993; Vol. 255, c. 235-6W.]

That commitment was given, in the House, to all Members of Parliament, to all members of the pension fund and to all workers in the industry, but clause 24 will tear it up. The clause will allow employers who sponsor the railway pension scheme and the Transport for London pension fund to amend the rules to increase member contributions, reduce member benefits or both, and those who will be affected are the people whom we have described as protected persons. Employers will be able to do that without the consent of trustees or scheme members, and without taking any cognisance of the views of the House. That is unacceptable.

A promise was given by Conservative Ministers to those workers and members of the pension fund, and to future members of the fund, and that promise was accepted throughout the House. It was understood that changes in circumstances might require changes to be made in pension schemes, but the promise of that added protection reassured people. John McGregor was right to say that such additional protection was needed. He said that trustees would be consulted, that the House would then take a view and, through an affirmative resolution, would be able to reach a decision, and that the trustees’ views would be laid before the House. However, the clause enables employers to tear up schemes, increase contributions, and reduce benefits.

It is also significant that there are 106 different employers in this sector now. If one changes the scheme, what happens when franchises are taken over? What happens when employees seek to change their employment from one company to another? We are introducing immense complexity into the overall industry, which I think will undermine the pensions protections that this House gave assurances on in 1993. This is a matter of morality and honour. To introduce this measure flies in the face of every undertaking made to these workers. My amendment would at least ensure that the trustees are involved in any decisions about the future of pensions in their sector. To be frank, I do not think it is much to ask for this House to ensure, and enforce, that Governments abide by their promises.

I want to speak in particular to our new clause 8 and amendment 37. We are now discussing the provisions in this Bill that relate specifically to state pensions rather than private pensions, and it might be of some significance that the issue of protected persons and protected pension schemes is emerging in this context.

We have listened to the very powerful case made by my hon. Friend John McDonnell, and one cannot but feel that there is a specific set of circumstances around the privatisation of nationalised industries. My hon. Friend has eloquently focused on the railways, but amendment 37 deals with the issue of former nationalised industries in the round, and there are also energy schemes and some coal schemes.

We are in a curious situation. The Minister is giving himself the power to keep the promise made to the members of those schemes, but he has not yet said whether he will use that power to honour that promise. This is a Pensions Bill and there are 50,000 or so remaining members of these pension schemes, so it is curious that he has not yet said what he intends to do. Will he do so in his reply?

Does my hon. Friend agree that the difference is that these privatisations were hugely contentious and there was huge opposition to them, and the pension promises were made by politicians to try to ensure that these things happened? That puts those situations in a different category from many of the others we are talking about.

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I agree that there is a specific set of circumstances around these pension schemes. I am certainly not saying that accruals and the terms and conditions of a pension can never be changed in any circumstances, but there is a specific set of politically charged circumstances to do with the privatisation of these industries. Specific undertakings were given to the members of those schemes to encourage them to accept, if not actively support, the privatisation of the industries in which they worked. I urge the Minister to tell us this evening, if he can do so, whether he intends to use the power he is giving himself in the Bill to honour the promises made to the members of those schemes. If he will not do so, we will force a Division to test the opinion of this House on amendment 37, which would mean that the promises made to the 50,000 or so men and women in those protected schemes were met.

I am conscious of the time and allowing the Minister appropriate time to respond to the broader debate. I noted closely what Caroline Lucas said about her new clause 6 and her belief that the 700,000 or so women in the group born between 1951 and 1953 will not get the new state pension, because they are the last pension cohort before the equalisation of the pension age, whereas men of precisely the same age will get it. Let me put it in simple terms: if there were twins, one male and one female, in that age cohort, the male twin would get the new state pension in 2016 but the female twin would not, having retired a little earlier. Such issues do emerge when we are involved in pension reform. The Minister and I have gone back and forth on the matter on a number of occasions, and I will not anticipate his arguments because we have gone through them some time before. However, we have to look at the issue in the context of a view that has grown up among many women that this Government’s attitude to their pension provision is not as generous as they believe it should be.

When considering the 2011 legislation, we had to deal with the issue of a significant number of women having very little time to prepare for retirement and short notice. They would have had to work for longer but some of them would have had only five years to prepare for that. They were five years from when they thought they would be retiring and then found out that they might have to work for seven more years. I am pleased that the Minister made a concession on that, although he did not go as far as we wanted. That group of women—a slightly different group from those we are dealing with here—who were also approaching retirement, felt that they were being unfairly treated. Not only did they feel, rightly, that they were being unfairly treated, but we have also had to deal with the Minister’s approach to auto-enrolment, which is excluding more than half a million women—and rising—from the benefits of auto-enrolment, because of the raising of the threshold for auto-enrolment in line with the personal allowance. A general sense has developed that this Government do not quite get it with women and pensions.

The hon. Gentleman’s new clause 8 calls for a review. Obviously, having a review is not the same as having an opinion, so what does he actually think should be done?

I certainly think the Minister should undertake a review.

The perception I am talking about has developed, so let me quote something that the Minister might be aware of. I cited it a couple of years ago, but he has probably forgotten.

Before my hon. Friend moves on, I wonder whether he would be interested to hear the Minister’s response to my constituent Maureen Davenport. The Minister said that the maximum state pension under the new system will be “significantly lower” than under the current system. He also said:

“In some ways the new system will be less generous for those who retire after April 2016”.

That is somewhat different from the fanfare and the Government saying that these new pensions would be wonderful for everybody.

I thank my hon. Friend for that powerful intervention. There has been an issue of this Government, certainly in the early stages, overselling some of the things they are doing.

The Government would be doing themselves a favour by undertaking this review, given the sense among significant groups of women that the Government do not care enough about their pension provision. In 2005, in the days when the Conservative party was still trying to say that it had changed, the Prime Minister said:

“If you put eight Conservative men round a table and ask them to discuss what should be done about pensions, you’d get some good answers…but what you are less likely to get is a powerful insight into the massive unfairness relating to women’s pensions.”

It is in that context—the sense that the Government have so far had their eye a little off the ball in respect of treating women fairly on pensions—that I intend to test the House’s opinion on our call for a review by the Government of these provisions.

These amendments can all be categorised as trying to do something for those who have lost out as a result of the Bill. Many of the issues were picked up by the Select Committee on Work and Pensions during our pre-legislative scrutiny of the Bill and it is a little disappointing that the Government have not always taken our advice on how they might be able to sort out the outstanding problems. One such problem, which has already been mentioned by my hon. Friend Sheila Gilmore, is that of inherited rights, usually those of women who expected to get their part of their state pension through their husbands’ contributions. Those who are nearing retirement would have no opportunity to meet the de minimis rule of 10 years if they were to start to make contributions now. Our suggestion was that there should continue to be some transitional arrangements for those within 15 years of state pension age.

Although it does not fall within this group of amendments, there is also the issue of those people who fell below the national insurance contribution threshold, particularly those who have had two jobs that together would have added up to take them above the threshold but have not. Perhaps the Minister could give us some hint of what might happen to that group, who are again predominantly women and will continue to lose out. Of course, there is also new clause 6, which makes a request on behalf of the group of women born between 6 April 1951 and 1953. They obviously feel hard done by.

There is also the group who have so-called frozen pensions, who have been so eloquently described this afternoon. We did not recommend that the Government should roll back the clock for those who have frozen pensions, but we should not import into a brand-new system the anomaly that those in Canada have their pensions frozen whereas those in the United States do not. That did not seem fair to us as a Committee, and we hoped the Government would act.

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way and for the contribution that her Committee continues to make. Let us face it, those of us who have been in this place for more than one Parliament have been hearing about frozen pensions for all that time—some of us for many years. Rather than our trying to solve it today through this Bill, is it not time that all the parties sat down together to discuss what commitment could be made for the next Parliament, regardless of who gets in, rather than the next Government being able to say “Well, the last Government didn’t do it, so we’re not going to either”?

Order. We need short interventions.

I think that may have been the problem with this Government and with the previous Government. Any Government who come in do not want to do it. The Select Committee’s straightforward recommendation was that the new system should not contain the same anomaly as the old system. I still stand by that. I hope the Government are listening and will change their mind and I suspect that the House of Lords will have quite a lot to say on this subject.

Let me say first of all that I support amendment 1, which I was very glad to put my name to.

My new clause 13 delays introducing part 2 until the Secretary of State has reported an assessment of the differential effects and impacts of the pensionable age in England, Wales and Scotland. People are now living longer and the better-off live longer than the worse-off, who work more years and start working earlier. The latest evidence suggests that the gap is widening and that is certainly the case as regards the differences between England and Wales. Wales has the lowest gross value added of the UK nations and regions. Welsh workers in general are less able to save for their pensions, which means that many people in Wales are reliant on the state pension. Life expectancy in Wales is also lower than it is in England. In my constituency, life expectancy is 78.3 years for men whereas in Dorset it is 83 years. Wales also has the appalling legacy of large-scale de-industrialisation and subsequent long-term worklessness. That means that many people have broken employment records and a disproportionate number might not qualify for a pension because of their lack of contributions.

The Government have stated that they intend to review changes in life expectancy every five or six years, and I think Lord Turner suggested that they did so every seven years. I have proposed a new clause to encourage Ministers to ensure that the panel reviewing life expectancy looks further and also considers Britain’s human geography of low incomes, no incomes, long-term unemployment, sickness and disability. That broader inequality must be addressed, as it will certainly persist.

In that short time we covered a wide range of issues, and in the 10 minutes or so remaining, I shall try to respond to as much as I can, although I apologise in advance to hon. Members whose amendments I do not reach. I shall deal with amendments in the order in which they were raised.

New clause 5 was dealt with by Sheila Gilmore and touched on by her colleague, the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, Dame Anne Begg. It addresses the position of the derived rights of people who are shortly coming up to pension age and the fact that we are ending the ability to derive pensions from a spouse. The spirit of the new clause implies transitional protection, but we have included comprehensive transitional protections in the system.

In particular, those who paid the married woman’s stamp and as a result have a poor contribution record will, notwithstanding the fact that we are ending derived rights, continue to be able to receive a 60% spouse’s pension or a 100% widow’s pension, because that was the basis of the deal that they did with the state. They signed the married woman’s stamp, which said, “I’ll pay less NI, but I understand that when I reach state pension age I’ll be able to get a pension based on my husband’s contribution record.” We took the view that because that was the basis of the deal, we could not change the rules. We have made sure that the limited number of women in that position are protected.

The issue is whether we should go further. It is worth bearing in mind that to get a £66 pension, which is the derived pension for a married woman, because of the rate of the single tier pension, such a woman needs 16 or 17 years in the system. For someone who has spent their life in this country, it is very difficult not to have achieved that or thereabouts.

There is an acceptance that for most people it would be unusual for that circumstance to arise, but according to the Department’s own figures, some women are in that position.

Indeed. The hon. Lady is right. Some women are in that position, but a significant proportion of them have had very limited contact with this country. This is the point that she touched on. Derived rights arise to people who have never even been to the country. They can get a 60% pension or a widow’s pension because their spouse is part of the UK pension system. She is asking us to keep, for another 15 years, an extraordinarily complex bit of the system rolling into the new system. We are trying to deliver a simple and effective new state pension system and we have already introduced transitional protection for the most obvious group, the married woman’s stamp pensioners, which we think needs to be protected. We could have kept the whole of the old system rolling on for another 15 years, but that would have created enormous complexity when we are trying to move to a simpler system.

Were we to follow new clause 5 and the Select Committee’s recommendation and choose 15 years as the cut-off, we could be as sure as anything that we would be under judicial review for someone who was 16 years shy of the line. In other words, if we have a cut-off date, we must have an objective basis for it, and we can find no objective basis for choosing 15 years. I take the point made by the hon. Member for Aberdeen South that because 10 years is the de minimis, 15 years is a bit more than 10. I get that, but so is 16 or 14.

The hon. Member for Edinburgh East said that someone some years ago was told not to buy missing years and now it is too late. I stress that the ability to buy missing years has been substantially relaxed by HMRC so people can buy back as far as 2005-06 on relatively favourable terms. Even by the end of the decade they will still be in a position to buy back missing years. If they have spent the money and they do not have it any more, they cannot do it, but that aside, the ability to buy back missing years still exists. Although buying 10 years costs a lot of money, very few people will be starting from zero. So to reach the 10-year de minimis would not necessarily be a huge outlay. Many will be over that level already and for those who are not and who have been in this country, the chance to buy one or two missing years will be important.

What we are trying to do is, yes, to recognise where we need transitional protection, but we want to avoid such great complexity that we recreate the complex old system for well over a decade in the new one. That is why we reject new clause 5.

Did not the Minister’s last point—that we do not want to continue the kind of discrimination that we had in the past—answer why he should accept amendment 1 and drop clause 20?

My hon. Friend, as ever, is sharp on these matters. Amendment 1, which stands in his name and that of my hon. Friend Sir Roger Gale, would delete clause 20. As the Chair of the Select Committee pointed out, that would do nothing for any of the overseas pensioners who have contacted us as their MPs; it would only remove the freezing for single-tier pensioners. I am sure that my hon. Friend Sir Peter Bottomley understands that point, but I just want to be clear that if we voted for the amendment, all we would be doing is creating a new anomaly.

In a sense, the Chair of the Select Committee urged us to create that new anomaly. She said that we cannot defend the old one and that we should at least not carry on with it, but by doing that we would create a new anomaly. It is not just about which side of the Niagara falls one happens to live on, because single-tier pensioners would get indexation but nobody else would. I think that we all know what would happen: we would end up back in court. My hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West referred, quite properly, to the extensive legal background to the issue, because it has been tried and tested by the International Consortium of British Pensioners in a range of courts, and all have found that in many cases what the Government are doing is implementing the law of the land as it has stood for decades.

My hon. Friends the Members for Worthing West and for North Thanet went to see the Prime Minister, and I am grateful to them for doing so. The hon. Member for Worthing West referred to the reply he received today from the Prime Minister—I am pleased that he replied in advance of the debate—who stated that, having reflected on their arguments, he did not feel that a further review was appropriate at this point. Obviously, the context he referred to is the £700 million cost of indexing those pensions. The hon. Member for North Thanet said that they were not asking for that to be backdated, but I speculate that as soon as we start indexing pensions and stepping them back up to where they would have been, the next court case will come when someone says, “Hang on a minute. Since you froze my pension I have missed out on X amount of money, so I expect that to be paid back as well.” These wedges have a knack of having thin ends. The cost of addressing this, at £700 million a year, is already substantial, but backdating would lead to far more substantial costs, which is difficult to justify at present.

As another signatory to amendment 1, I am disappointed by the Prime Minister’s response. Will the Minister at least admit that he personally feels that this is a terrible injustice that will have to be addressed sooner or later, because the longer we leave it the more difficult it will be?

I was asked about the issue when I appeared before the Select Committee, and I said that I sympathised with the pensioners we were talking about.

I commented that my sympathy would butter no parsnips, meaning that it would not be worth a huge amount to the people involved, but I was vilified for using that phrase. I am not quite sure what to say, but I sympathise with the point that was made.

My hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West gave an example of someone on a pension of a few pounds a week being topped up by the Australian Government. I do not know about the individual case, but in general if all we did was increase that pension, we would not necessarily increase the pensioner’s standard of living, because all that would do is take money out of what they get from the Australian Government. If we are concerned about their standard of living, increasing their pension in a means-tested system would not necessarily help.

Caroline Lucas asked about giving women between 51 and 53 a choice, and when the shadow Minister was asked for his opinion, he said that it was that we should have a review. Obviously that plays to the gallery and sounds sympathetic, but it is not actually suggesting a solution. The complexity that the hon. Lady and I have talked about is not so much that we could not give people all the information, because we could, although it is complicated to put across; the problem is that nobody knows what their future is. A woman could choose to take the single-tier pension on day one, which would look like the right thing to do because she would get more than she does under the current system, but if her husband died the next day she would not get a derived widow’s pension and she would have made herself worse off as a result.

I take the Minister’s point, but my point is that it should be for that woman to decide. Yes, there is a risk, but she is better placed to make the judgment than he is. Many women would want that change, and he has not given a good reason why it should not happen.

In addition to the issue of people who will subsequently be bereaved is that of people who will flow on to savings credit, and nobody can possibly know whether, at some point during the course of their retirement, they will move on to that. Although I understand the concerns that have been raised, that group of women have actually benefited from the triple lock that we have introduced. Far from doing them down, as Gregg McClymont has suggested, we have improved their pension position. On his more general point about the position of women in the pension system, this whole Bill is about improving that position. That is why I urge the House to reject the amendments and to support the Bill.

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Am I right in saying that, under the procedure of the House, amendment 1, which would remove clause 20, will not be called because of the guillotine?

I am not calling it. Unfortunately, that is the procedure of the House, as the hon. Gentleman well knows.

Debate interrupted (Programme Order, this day).

The Deputy Speaker put forthwith the Question already proposed from the Chair (Standing Order No. 83E), That the clause be read a Second time.

Question negatived.

The Deputy Speaker then put forthwith the Questions necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded at that time (Standing Order No. 83E).