Indeed so—I made the image up on the spot, but I will, indeed, repeat it. What I was arguing there was that women were facing a cliff edge. Men had always had that slow path to the beach, but that is now being withdrawn from them and as a result they have a cliff edge in the future between where they are, on benefits, and state pension. Unfortunately for the Minister, the argument continues to be made.
I do not think that any of us disagree, as my noble friend Lady Drake pointed out so well and as was reinforced by my noble friend Lady Sherlock, that we need to extend healthy life expectancy and that that requires health policies. We need to make the second decade of average life expectancy, of increasing disability, of as decent a quality as we possibly can. The noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, said that factors will change. Of course they will. The Minister said that factors will change, but the point is that that is already covered, as was pointed out by my noble friend Lord Browne, but the wording of Clause 26(1)(a) gives the Secretary of State alone the privilege of determining the other factors. Putting all these factors in the Bill, as listed in the White Paper, does not exclude other factors that may develop as time permits; it is a basis on which I would hope that the DWP has its arm strengthened as it engages in battles for resources with other departments and with the Treasury.
Does the Minister really think that he will have greater powers of persuasion to get those health policies that we would want to extend healthy life expectancy,
or those supporting policies from local government or from the DCLG for the second decade if these factors are not in the Bill and if the Government are not bound by the legislative requirement to consider those factors? On the contrary; by putting those factors into the Bill we will strengthen the DWP’s arm in requiring other departments to play their part in seeking to extend healthy life expectancy and to improve the quality of the decade of disability. Without it, his position will be weaker, not stronger. The other factors, as my noble friend Lord Browne has reminded me, remain the same. I hope that this addresses the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham. We are absolutely right to challenge the assumption of reduced inequality.
My noble friend Lady Sherlock said that we are going to eat into capital. The point is that, for example, somebody who is in a position to draw down an occupational pension has a choice of when they retire and they are not dependent on their basic state pension. The people we are talking about in this Bill are, and they have no such choice. As my noble friend Lady Sherlock said, they will eat into their capital, thus ensuring an impoverished old age as they wait to reach their state pension age.
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The Minister said that such inequalities have always existed and should be tackled in other ways. How does he expect them to be tackled? Does he think that putting into the Bill the wording of the White Paper, which talks about tackling them, makes that possibility more or less likely? I am sure that he, too, wants healthy life expectancy to rise along with life expectancy, and the quality of the second decade of retirement to be as high as we can possibly make it. I am sure he agrees with that. I am surprised that he does not see that his position vis-à-vis other departments and policy development would be strengthened, not weakened, if this was in the Bill. Other factors remain. He can still specify them. I do not understand why he does not.
For me, this is not just an actuarial issue. It is a moral issue about whether we make that last period in people’s lives as healthy and free from disability as we possibly can. To do that, the Minister would be well advised to have the words of this White Paper enshrined in the legislation in order to hold his colleagues to account. I shall withdraw the amendment, but it may be that we will come back to it. I think the Minister is being very unwise in refusing to put it in the Bill. He has given no explanation for that other than flexibility. He does not need to say that. He has other factors in already. That is redundant verbiage, if I may say so. Why, exactly, is he not willing to add his first thoughts to his second thoughts, which are the Bill? I can only presume that he has been got at by HMRC, which wants to retain the simplest tick-box of them all, rather than the list the Minister was talking about: average longevity increases, therefore average state pension age rises. If he wants any help in resisting that, he needs these words in the Bill. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.