Pensions

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for repeating the Statement. It is very gratifying indeed to learn that the Government have at length agreed to revise state benefit arrangements to ensure that in future the benefit will rise in relation to the wages index rather than the retail prices index. My late friend Lady Castle would be absolutely delighted. Your Lordships will well remember her impassioned speeches in this House when she urged the Government to do so a great deal earlier than this. I am sorry that we shall have to wait for it, but there we are. I am a little concerned that there appears to be a get-out clause in relation to affordability. Perhaps the Minister would like to elaborate on that. I should not like to think that when we reach the date the affordability will not be there and there may be some reason for not implementing what has been suggested. Of course, the number of pensioners reliant on means-testing will be substantially reduced, although not completely eliminated. In my view, it will be necessary to increase the basic state pension for everyone in order to make up for the years when pensioners received increases only in line with the RPI. It will be argued that that will not be affordable and that people who have good private pensions will receive the increase as well, but, of course, it is always possible to tax the complete pension, which I am sure will be done. If there is an increase in the state pension of those who already have a good private pension, they will have to return some of it via the tax system. I agree with my noble friend Lady Hollis on the issue of women. I would prefer a residency test rather than a contribution test, which would surely be more advantageous to women. However, I welcome the comment in the Statement that the FAS is to be increased. We had a number of debates on that in this House when it was first introduced and there was concern about whether the amount would be adequate to meet the demands which we made on it. I am very glad that apparently that is to be increased. I share all the views expressed on the need for consensus. I well remember that back in the 1970s we thought we had consensus on the Castle plan and on the introduction of SERPS. As we know, that consensus did not hold. This time, if we come to a consensus, it has to hold for the future. I am sure that everyone who has spoken will agree that that is sensible. We are talking about a very long-term point. On retirement ages, I do not believe that one can apply the same criteria to everyone. In certain employments, people can quite easily be expected to work longer, but that does not apply in some kinds of employment, where an earlier retirement date would be much more appropriate. I thank the Minister for what he has said and look forward to a fuller debate in the future.