Pensions Reform

I think that the hon. Gentleman has made my point for me. A citizens pension did not necessarily have full support from the general public or in the House. There was some support—I was part of that—for a universal entitlement. There were those who thought that that might be a good way forward, based on residency. It is interesting that, since the Government came up with their proposals in the White Paper, which expand the coverage of national insurance contributions, many of the organisations that thought that universal entitlement was one of the easier ways to go forward are quite happy with what is proposed. The change in the proposals will produce the same result as that which would have been reached with universal entitlement. I never signed up to a citizens pension because it had too many elements of the old dependency pension, which we want to get rid of, especially for women. It depended on women being dependent on men. There are also issues about living in the country and being a citizen of the country. That led to issues about taking the pension abroad. I find it slightly ironic that some Members have signed the early-day motion that asks the Government to consider restoring the link to inflation for those who live in Commonwealth countries, while others are advocating the citizens pension, which would not follow many such people to Commonwealth countries, especially if they had been out of this country for 20 years. The situation is not quite as clear cut as the hon. Member for Angus (Mr. Weir) makes out. How do we build a consensus? My route through this process is perhaps an illustrative one. It might be that that is why I am slightly disappointed in the attitude of the SNP, given that it has been unable to move from its rigid position to grasp what some of the changes are. Scottish Widows has been mentioned several times today. I remember participating in an event for Scottish Widows a couple of days after the publication of the second Turner commission report. My initial reactions at that event were based very much on a first quick reading of the Turner commission report. I thought that it scored highly in terms of what it offered for women carers. For me, that was a big tick. It was something that I had been looking for in any future pensions policy. I took the view that women who had been so discriminated against in previous pension policy should receive equal recognition along with men in work. I wanted to see whether the Turner commission proposed to continue the Government’s work on poverty reduction. Again, it did so, so that was another positive. Initially, I was not keen on the proposal to raise the state retirement age, which I thought was a bad idea, particularly for manual workers and people who live in communities such as Glasgow where the average life expectancy is 69. People die young, and many of them are not economically active beyond 50. I was therefore extremely dubious about the proposal to raise the state retirement age. As for the national pension savings scheme, I did not know enough about it, so I was not in a position to judge whether or not it would be a good idea. I therefore held off expressing an opinion, whether positive or negative, until I found out a great deal more. However, my views have changed, not because I believe that the basic pension should be based on a different principle but because consensus building involves looking at all the different components. Crucially, the White Paper and the original Turner proposals are part of a whole—there is an interplay between different elements, so that, in practice, if one removes one major element, the other elements simply do not work. I therefore disagree with the SNP—if its members had looked more carefully at the White Paper they would realise that it includes many of the things that they want to achieve in pensions policy. They are not necessarily present in the form that they want, but they are there none the less.