Pensions Bill

I pay tribute to those hon. Members, including the Secretary of State, who raised the issue of Kindertransport. I understand that it involves only 150 people, but it is important for them and it is good to see that an amendment will restore some of their rights. Like the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous), I welcome Lords amendments Nos. 202, 203 and 228, which have been referred to as the Baroness Hollis amendments. They go a long way to right a considerable wrong. Lord McKenzie reckoned that there were 550,000 people in this category, 90 per cent. of whom were women. I welcome the fact that the amendments will allow individuals who reach state pension age between 6 April this year and 5 April 2015 to buy an additional six years of voluntary class 3 national insurance contributions, provided they already have 20 qualifying years on their national insurance record. At present a woman needs 39 years and a man needs 44 years of national insurance contributions to get the full state pension of £90.70. Clearly, the decision to lower that to 30 years for both is welcome; it will go a long way towards making sure that people get what they are entitled to. However, some anomalies remain. For example, if a woman retires before 2010 and buys the six additional years, that will restore only 2.5 per cent. of her weekly pension per year she buys back, while those who retire after that date will get back 3.3 per cent. The amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Northavon (Steve Webb) is on a different issue, but the differential between those who will retire up to 2010 and those who will retire after 2010 seems to be yet another anomaly that has been built into the system. I suppose that when it is advantageous or disadvantageous to retire is a decision that bedevils the whole issue of pensions and pension credit. I hope that the Minister will look into it; it is important. My hon. Friend the Member for Northavon will raise the issues that he has raised previously with further buy-backs. I agree with the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire that it would help if we knew what publicity programme the Department was planning on buy-back. As we said when we talked about personal accounts, it is important that people have information if they are going to spend money and then end up slightly worse off or only slightly better off. I hope that the Minister will reassure us that a proper process will be in place and that Citizens Advice or Age Concern, for example, will support people by providing that advice. She said that the scheme will be cost-neutral for the Government. The worst that could happen would be for a woman to enter into the arrangement and find that she is worse off. Amendments Nos. 204 and 220 deal with data sharing. Again, I have to agree with the hon. Gentleman about the person involved agreeing to their data being shared. That needs to be made explicit before the data are handed over. We have issues about data sharing and data loss, not least within the Minister's Department. Before we start handing out more data, we need to be clear what arrangements will be put in place. We also need the energy companies to enter into an agreement or code on how that data will be used. The other issue, which has moved on a bit since the amendments were debated in the Lords, is that the Government have set in train a system of support for people with regard to energy and energy saving, although my hon. Friend the Member for Northavon says that it is complicated. It is restricted to people who receive pension credits. I wonder whether the Department should consider making the system available to a range of other people. I am sure all hon. Members want that support to be given widely because of the steep rises in energy bills that people have been experiencing in the past 12 months. If we are going to share data with energy companies, there is a wider issue to consider of what other data should be shared. If someone is disabled or on a particular benefit, we should ensure that consent is given. I hope that the Minister can respond to those points. I look forward to hearing what my hon. Friend has to say. We are in complete sympathy with the issue that he wishes to raise, but it is difficult to support something when we do not have the full costs. Perhaps the Minister could write to us with more information on how she has arrived at the figures. I understand that my hon. Friend tabled questions but did not receive the figures until today. Whether we should go further might be a debate for another day, but it would help us to have the basis on which the Minister arrived at the figures.