Professor Steve Webb (Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Work & Pensions; Northavon, Liberal Democrat)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Good morning, Mr. Griffiths. We are a select band, but quality makes up for lack of quantity. The purpose of new clause 5 is to address the needs of women who, at some point in their contribution history, have paid national insurance at the reduced rate that is available only to married women and subsequently if they are widowed.

The Committee might say that the Bill is mainly about company pensions, private pensions and regulators, so why spend time on a new clause about a specific group of people and their state pension entitlement? My reason for tabling the new clause is that the Government accepted in their pensions Green Paper that women's pensions were a particular issue and devoted a whole chapter to the nature of the problems that affect women. We had assumed that, when the Department for Work and Pensions had time, it would introduce legislation about women's pensions. However, the Pensions Bill is pretty much silent on the subject. The new clause would tackle one of the injustices that women face, which is why they continue to be poor relations in the matter of pensions.

In the constructive spirit of the Committee's proceedings, I refer hon. Members to early-day motion 131 that was tabled in the previous Session. It is almost the same as new clause 5 and was signed by more than 200 hon. Members. As well as myself, my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Paul

Holmes) and the hon. Member for East Carmarthen and Dinefwr (Adam Price), four Labour members of the Committee kindly signed the early-day motion. They were the hon. and learned Member for Redcar (Vera Baird), a co-sponsor of the motion, and the hon. Members for Coventry, South (Mr. Cunningham), for Burton (Mrs. Dean) and for Monmouth (Mr. Edwards). I am grateful to them for signing an early-day motion that was headed by the name of a Liberal Democrat, although it was a cross-party motion, because they strongly felt that an injustice needed addressing. I hope that the Committee will consider that the issue is not partisan but unites us all.

I shall set out the background to the problem. Under the system, married women could elect to pay a reduced rate of national insurance. In return, they forwent entitlement to retirement pension and certain other benefits on their contributions. Why have such a system in the first place? Well, as the Minister will know, it was based a male breadwinner view of the world. The presumption was that men earned money and that women had babies, so only men needed their earnings replacing and would therefore be part of the system and pay the full rate of national insurance, but married women—as distinct from single women, who were never part of the scheme—could pay less and receive less. In a 1940s view of the world, there was a certain logic to that idea.

In principle, we could ask what was the problem. We had a system under which people made an informed choice. They saved money at the time and recognised that, when they were old, they would not receive it, but they would have husbands. Had that worked, we would probably not be here discussing such matters, but the truth is different. There are several respects in which, in fact, the choice that the women made when they opted for the reduced-rate contribution was not an informed choice in the way that we understand that term now. [Interruption