I endorse almost everything that the hon. Member for Warrington South (David Mowat) has just said. In fact, I do not think it would be unfair to suggest that he has thrown a grenade into this debate, because for all the Bill’s positive aspects, he has hit the nail on the head. In order for a single flat-rate state pension and auto-enrolment to work, we must have a private pensions industry that delivers value for money for every saver.
This speaks directly to the general thrust of the contributions of other Government Members. The hon. Members for Gloucester (Richard Graham), for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb), for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price) and for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless) were right to focus on the Bill’s importance in encouraging incentives to save, but the question that went unasked until the powerful contribution of the hon. Member for Warrington South was: save into what? That is why we have been telling the pensions Minister for 18 months, as we will continue to tell him in Committee and further stages, that although there are very good things in the Bill, the danger is that it will represent only half a reform unless the Government take on the series of reforms referred to by the hon. Member for Warrington South. Let us be clear: this is not just a state pension Bill; it is also a Bill for auto-enrolment and private pensions.
Pensions are an issue where the devil is in the detail, and the detail in this Bill demands analysis. In principle, the introduction of a flat-rate state pension is a positive move that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh
East (Sheila Gilmore) has made clear, builds on a Labour platform. In order for auto-enrolment and the new workplace pensions—as the Secretary of State has generously stated, these build on Labour’s work—to work, we must have a private pensions industry that delivers value for money for every saver.
Much of the debate centred on the pensions legacy with which we all grapple, in opposition and in government. I do not think that it is possible to understand this Bill unless we consider two consequences of the Thatcher revolution for pensions. The first is the breaking of the link with earnings, which led to enormous growth in pensioner poverty, to which pension credit was the Labour answer. [Interruption.] The pensions Minister speaks from a sedentary position. I am sure he would agree that pension credit attacked a significant and real problem with pensioner poverty in 1997. He is now building the flat-rate state pension a pound above pension credit, which is why this is a Labour platform.
More or just as importantly, we continue to grapple with the legacy of the Thatcher Government’s policy on occupational pensions. Simply put, in order to promote a brave new world of personal private pensions the Thatcher Government did things—not deliberately; I am sure they were unintended consequences—that undermined the UK occupational pension system, which was at that time the envy of the world. The result was the mis-selling scandals of the 1980s and 1990s, the collapse of confidence in all non-state pensions and the flight from high-quality workplace pension schemes. That is the context in which we proceed.