I've just read Steve Webb's response to their Lordships. Having said he is fair minded, his response to one Labour suggestion received short thrift. It was suggested to him that workers might aggregate more than one low paid, part time job (someone holding down part time cleaning/shop jobs on the patch maybe?), in order to accrue national insurance contributions (NIC) to qualify for the full basic state pension.
Some jobs don't pay enough to accrue NIC and since to qualify for the new flat rate state pension workers now need a 35 year NIC record, the amendment would have allowed people to combine several part time jobs to reach the NIC threshold. In the crudest of terms, yesterday's news about helping with childcare costs needs to be paid somehow - long after Webb is retired - caviar today jam tomorrow?
Webb suggested that although there was evidence that out of a "50 year average working life", people could afford to spend "15 years" working in jobs that didn’t accrue NIC. In itself, bizarre, given the auto enrollment pensions adverts we seem to hear every two minutes (you do if you listen to Talksport) and the fact many workers spend far longer than 15 years with this working pattern anyway.
Aside from his subtle confirmation everyone will be working until at least aged 70 unless they nail retirement provision, there was also a bit of a bunfight over pension charges. The moral of the story is though, a career or an overseas posting is absolutely vital for your OH's state pension - every little helps! But apart from that and the bit about the state quietly shedding its responsibility for retirement, it seems that F.O.D's law got through..
We are on the home straight of the Pensions Bill. It has been all the way through this House and their lordships’ House, and we have come back to it today to deal with amendments that, with one exception, make it a better Bill. I am grateful to my noble Friends Lord Freud and Lord Bates who, from the ministerial Benches, took the Bill through another place. I am also grateful to all my colleagues who have contributed to the Bill, and to peers on both sides of the House of Lords who have made insightful contributions and improved the Bill in a number of ways.
We have made a number of amendments in response to concerns raised by noble Lords, so I emphasise that our decision to ask this House to disagree with their amendment 1 is exceptional. Indeed, that is the only amendment with which we are asking the House to disagree, so I hope that we will be seen to have taken a constructive approach and that we have sought to improve the Bill on a cross-party basis wherever possible. For reasons that I will explain, however, we ask the House to disagree with this amendment.
I will keep an eye on it and hopefully, over the next 12 months as the regulations evolve, offer one or two letter templates to help partners register/clawback/claim the new entitlement.