Pensions Bill

My Lords, I shall be brief, because every point of the amendment, with all its faults and deficiencies, has been covered. The present position is anomalous, discriminatory and, most of all, unfair. If the noble Baroness decides to test the opinion of the House, I shall for the first time vote in a way that my noble friends on the Front Bench probably will not. I believe that they will abstain—I have not discussed it with them, but that is what I think they will do. The noble Baroness is not only tenacious, as my noble friend Lady Shephard said, but also enormously courageous. She had the courage to plough on at the very beginning—it went on for two minutes—when noble Lords were walking out, talking and not hearing anything. The problem is that, if we divide on the amendment, a lot of noble Lords will not have heard all the arguments. Before we take advantage of voting in the way we ought, we might gently mention to our noble friends the opinions of the whole House. It is time that we dealt with all the anomalies by supporting the noble Baroness.