Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP) I beg to move, That this House has
considered early access to pensions for people with a terminal
illness. It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr
Sharma. In the United Kingdom, it is not possible under any
circumstances to access a state pension before retirement age—not
even if a person has paid national insurance contributions for the
full 35 years, is terminally ill, and have less than a year to
live. The purpose of the...Request free
trial
(Angus) (SNP)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered early access to pensions for
people with a terminal illness.
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Sharma. In
the United Kingdom, it is not possible under any circumstances to
access a state pension before retirement age—not even if a person
has paid national insurance contributions for the full 35 years,
is terminally ill, and have less than a year to live. The purpose
of the state pension is to support all of us towards the end of
life, at a time when we are less capable or incapable of work,
yet people with a terminal illness, who are nearing the end of
life and, in the majority of cases, are no longer able to work,
are not entitled to draw on their state pension, regardless of
their contributions, financial difficulties or personal or family
situation.
(Rutherglen and Hamilton
West) (Ind)
Terminal cancer patients who have surpassed their life expectancy
have been told by firms such as Legal & General that they are
ineligible to access their pension early because they may live
longer. People are being punished for defying their life
expectancy. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that people with a
terminal illness should be given the dignity and respect of being
able to access their own pension early?
I absolutely agree. Dignity and respect is at the heart of that
ambition, as she so clearly articulates.
I start the debate with an appalling statistic. More than a
quarter of people who die before retirement age spend their final
days in poverty. In my Angus constituency, that figure is 24%. It
is awful to think that for so many people with terminal illness,
their last days are filled with worry and fears that go beyond
the illness with which they have been diagnosed. Marie Curie
reports that many terminally ill people feel stress about keeping
a roof over their head, paying for their children’s school
uniform or the energy use of their specialist medical equipment.
As far as possible, the last days of life should be spent
surrounded by friends and family, making happy memories in
comfortable surroundings.
My constituent Ian Bain, from Forfar, was diagnosed with motor
neurone disease in 2014. Mr Bain worked his entire life. He
started work in 1977, and accrued 41 years of national insurance
contributions—six more than necessary to entitle him to a full
state pension on retirement. When he stopped working due to
illness, there was no way for him to access his state pension,
because he was not yet 65. Due to Department for Work and
Pensions delays, he also did not receive any social security
payments until nine months after applying. Mr Bain was not
entitled to claim under the special rules, as he had been advised
that he had more than six months left to live. When he did
eventually start receiving payments, he received them only at the
lower rate of the personal independence payment and employment
and support allowance.
Although Mr Bain had been diagnosed as terminally ill by a
medical practitioner, he was required to return annually for
follow-up assessments to see if his incurable degenerative
condition had improved. He was even informed by one assessor that
he “looked well”—cold comfort if ever there was. It was only in
2021 that Mr Bain started receiving the higher rate, when he was
moved to the Scottish Government’s adult disability payment. Mr
Bain can no longer speak to me on the telephone and has to use a
single finger to email me. He should not face the indignity and
stress of continually having to jump through bureaucratic hoops
for a pittance, while the pension that he has so completely paid
into for decades is denied to him by the tightest of all
fists.
Sadly, Mr Bain’s situation is far from rare. Another Angus
constituent, Ross, told me that his father
“died of cancer in 2019 just 2 days before being able to draw on
his pension, he had spent his whole life working. He paid his
contributions religiously from the day he was able to work and
got nothing back.”
My constituent Malcolm advised:
“When you hear someone tell you that you have cancer, you
immediately think you are going to die. That thought
automatically triggers the need to make sure for the provision
for your loved ones. The only thing we should have to deal with
is building up happy memories for those left. This is more
difficult when money is in short supply due to escalating
costs.”
Another Angus constituent said that her husband died of a
glioblastoma
“4 months before he retired. He worked his entire life and was
never off sick or claimed benefits once. Once he was diagnosed I
had to battle to get assistance. He should have been able to
access his state pension early.”
It would have made all the difference. She continues:
“it would have helped with the financial strain.”
Access to funds for the terminally ill is a problem across these
islands. People are twice as likely to die in poverty if they are
terminally ill and under 66 years of age. The reasons for this
poverty are well understood. People with terminal illnesses very
often cannot work. Two thirds of terminally ill people rely on
benefits as their main or only source of income. At the same
time, costs can often increase dramatically at the end of life.
The additional cost of terminal illness can reach up to £16,000 a
year. There is often a need for energy-intensive specialist
medical care in the home. Many people need to keep their home
warmer, and their energy bills increase dramatically. All of us
in the United Kingdom are exposed to inflationary pressure and
sky-high energy costs, but for the terminally ill, the situation
is permitted to become even more dire.
The Scottish Government have acted to mitigate some of the
financial and bureaucratic pressure on those experiencing
terminal illness. Scotland is introducing its own extra costs
disability assistance benefit, having already introduced the
child disability payment and adult disability payment, which
replace the disability living allowance and personal independence
payment. It is working towards the introduction of a further
payment to replace the attendance allowance.
The Scottish Government have also changed the definition of
“terminal illness” used to allow access to benefits from the
12-month special-rule definition used in England to an indefinite
definition that includes all people diagnosed with a terminal
illness. This allows people to be fast-tracked to receive the
highest rate of payment as quickly as possible, and for longer.
The central principle of the approach is to ensure that
terminally ill people are provided with the support that they
need, when they need it. That approach represents nothing more
than the dignified acceptance of a terminally ill person’s
circumstances. It is simply doing the right thing. Those changes
are welcome and will do much to improve the experience of those
with a terminal illness living in Scotland, but the fact remains
that their state pension is kept from them, no matter how long
they have paid into the system. The Scottish Government have no
power to intervene when it comes to that injustice.
People with terminal illnesses have often paid enormous amounts
of national insurance. On average, people aged 20 to 64 who are
in their last year of life have accrued 24 years of national
insurance contributions, and will never see the benefit of that
investment, yet the path to improving the situation is
straightforward and affordable. France, Germany, Italy and Spain
all provide for early access to the state pension in the event of
disability, and for those found to have a terminal illness.
Research conducted by Loughborough University found that giving
working-age terminally ill people access to their state pension
could almost halve the rate of poverty in that cohort, lifting
more than 8,600 people a year out of poverty at the end of their
life. That change would be not only effective but extremely
affordable. It is estimated to cost £144 million per year—just
0.1% of the annual state pension bill—and would make an
immeasurable improvement to the dignity and life of some of the
most vulnerable people in our communities, and their families. It
is also fair. People pay into a state pension their whole life to
ensure a comfortable end of life, but when they reach end of
life, the UK Government tell them that they will keep the money.
How can that be? To put it another way, the UK Government are
saving £144 million per year by withholding access to state
pensions from terminally ill people. That is unconscionable.
Members not just from my own party but from across the House have
asked the UK Government to consider permitting terminally ill
people to access their state pension, regardless of age. Many
Members in this debate and beyond fear that the Minister’s
response will echo previous Government responses—that she will
say that terminally ill people already get access to benefits, or
that those in their final years of life will have their
applications fast-tracked. Those measures have failed to avoid
the extraordinarily high rates of poverty among the terminally
ill, they do very little for those diagnosed as having more than
12 months to live, and they are clearly insufficient in
supporting people during what can be one of the most devastating
and frightening periods of anyone’s life.
I hope that the Minister will give this humane and decent
aspiration the due consideration it deserves, and that the
Government will change the rules for terminally ill people not
just in Angus but across these islands.
5.41pm
(Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch
and Strathspey) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. I
wish that more Members had attended this very important debate so
that I could sum up some more contributions, but I thank my hon.
Friend the Member for Angus () for securing it and
delivering a powerful speech in which he entreated the UK
Government to act with compassion. It is vital that terminally
ill people are finally given the respect they deserve in UK
Government circles.
When terminally ill people get their diagnosis, they are
absolutely devastated, and so are their families. It is a
situation that none of us wants to face, and nor do we want
members of our family to face it. It is absolutely devastating,
and grief kicks in immediately. That is just one of the pressures
facing terminally ill people and their families, which my hon.
Friend laid out.
Terminal illness puts an emotional, mental and financial strain
on the individual and their family. More than four in five
families living with advanced cancer face income losses as a
result. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that allowing early access
to pensions will enable people with terminal illness and their
families to focus on the quality of their end-of-life experience
and not worry about money?
The hon. Lady is absolutely right. This should be about making
the people who are facing this most dreadful situation and their
families as comfortable as possible and helping them to move
forward. The cost is small, although as my hon. Friend the Member
for Angus said, by not paying out the £144 million a year, the UK
Government are running a lottery; they hope to get that dividend
in from people. That is a small amount for dignity and fairness
for the people in that situation and their families.
My hon. Friend shared the damning statistic that terminally ill
people are twice as likely as others to die in poverty. They have
bigger costs; it costs more to be terminally ill. For a start,
they are ill, and most are homebound, which increases energy
costs. There is the cost of the adaptations that they have to
make, and increased costs for their families, who have to visit
more to provide support.
The issue should be very simple for the UK Government. I am chair
of the all-party parliamentary group for terminal illness, and
although our entreaties about the six-month rule were listened
to—on every occasion, Ministers said, “Yes, we must do something
about this”—the change to 12 months took years in which thousands
of people died waiting. I welcomed the change from six months to
12 months because it made life marginally more easy for people,
but the fact that the effect is marginal—the very minimum that
could be done for terminally ill people—is the most damning thing
about this. As has been stated, this is about fairness and
dignity, and people’s ability to have a quality end of life. The
power is with the UK Government to make a very simple and fair
adjustment. As has been underlined, in the scale of things, the
cost is small, but the scale of the impact on the lives of people
who are terminally ill and their families is enormous.
Nobody is asking for things that people have not earned; these
pensions are something that people have earned throughout their
lives. The Government can look at it this way: when someone gets
that devastating note that says they are terminally ill, the
Government know they will save money from the fact that that
person is not going to be around for years collecting their state
pension. Therefore, the Government can at least make this gesture
towards making people’s lives easier. Why do we not see more
compassion from the UK Government over this very simple matter?
People are dying; why not treat them the way they should be
treated? Why not strain every sinew and make every move to ensure
that people in this situation have the best possible end of life?
It is one thing that all of us could achieve by working together,
and that the UK Government could commit to.
We heard about the tragedy of Mr Bain, a constituent of my hon.
Friend the Member for Angus, who spent 41 years paying into his
pension. He earned it but he is not going to get it. Think of my
hon. Friend’s other constituent, Malcolm, who is quoted as saying
when his diagnosis of cancer came in, “You immediately think you
are going to die.” Of course he thought that, with that
diagnosis. People are going to die; the problem is that, with the
best will in the world, doctors cannot put a definitive timescale
on when. However, they can often say that, “You are going to
degenerate and your life is going to get more difficult as you go
towards the end of life.”
This is a simple act. State pensions are reserved to the UK
Government, so only they can act on this for people in Scotland
and the other nations of the UK. Other nations can, as we have
heard, make provisions like this; they can do the right thing for
people. My hon. Friend the Member for Angus laid it out very
clearly, but I will say it again: this is not a mammoth choice,
and it is not going to destroy the UK budget. It is a small step
that, along with other measures, should be taken to assist people
who are terminally ill and their families.
When the Minister sums up the debate and answers our questions, I
ask her not to just give out platitudes and promises of long-term
action, as we have heard so many times before from so many other
Ministers in the UK Government. I am not saying she will do that,
but I believe the debate deserves answers on how she will take
the issue back to her Department and work out a proper plan for
people who are terminally ill and their families, so they can
have the dignity, respect and fairness they deserve. She can give
a reassurance that she will fight tooth and nail to get state
pensions released for people who are terminally ill.
5.48pm
(Reading East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. I
thank the hon. Member for Angus () and colleagues from across
the House who have contributed to this important debate. I hope
the Government will take this issue seriously and find ways to
improve the lives of people with a terminal illness.
I am pleased that legislation was passed last year to support
people with a terminal illness in having fast-track access to
benefits. I hope that we can develop a consensus on other
matters, including the related issue we are discussing today, but
I would sound a note of caution following on from the debate last
September on the Social Security (Special Rules for End of Life)
Act 2022, where the House worked together to allow people in the
last years of life to receive increased benefits. One of the
challenges raised at the time was whether the Government were
able to deliver on their promises, given the series of failures
over the last decade. I hope that the Minister will ensure that
DWP runs smoothly and that the errors we have seen in some
aspects of the pensions and benefits system will be addressed, so
that the people in that greatest need are protected. I ask the
Minister to reassure Members that the Department will be able to
provide individual pension savers and people in need with the
level of service they would expect.
On the substance of the debate—early access to pensions—I want to
cover two aspects in my speech: the issue of occupational
pensions, and then the issue of access to the state pension,
which the hon. Member for Angus mentioned. Occupational pensions
play a very important role in allowing constituents to save for
their retirement, and it is only right that people who have saved
all their lives and contributed to the system should be able to
access the money that they have saved. I understand that people
with less than a year to live are already able to withdraw their
entire pension in some cases, and a substantial amount in other
cases, and even those who are younger may be able to take
advantage of that facility through the pension freedoms that are
normally available at the age of 55. I ask the Minister to
reassure Members about her work with the pensions industry to
develop this further, so that we can have a further discussion
and perhaps gain further understanding of the possible ways to
support people. Given that a great deal of many constituents’
income in retirement does not come from money that is saved
through occupational pensions, it is very important that the
money that people have saved is available to them at their time
of need.
On the state pension, I want to put on the record my thanks to
Marie Curie and other campaign groups for raising this issue. It
is very important that we listen to the voices of those
campaigners, and I am grateful to the hon. Member for Angus for
securing the debate so that we can discuss them. I understand
that the Government’s current position is not to allow early
access to the state pension. I would be very grateful if the
Minister confirmed that that and set out the evidence on which
the decision is based. I am sure that the Department will have
explored the issue in detail, and I ask her to consider
publishing some of the research carried out by the Department on
this matter, so that we can understand it better and have a
fuller debate in future.
I want to take this opportunity to raise some other points that
have been made by campaigners. I am worried by some of the
research that outlines the scale of the problem that energy bills
can cause those facing the awful diagnosis of terminal illness,
and I am grateful to the hon. Member for Angus for mentioning
that point. For example, research by Marie Curie explains that
after a terminal illness diagnosis, energy bills may rise by as
much as 75%. I think I heard the hon. Member refer to some of the
additional medical needs, the need for greater home heating and
sometimes the need for expensive equipment, such as oxygen tanks,
in a person’s home. It is very important that we understand that,
take it into account and see the wider needs of somebody facing
an awful diagnosis and suffering a terrible challenge.
There is a lot of independent research on the consequences of
living in damp, under-heated properties, which we should also
bear in mind when we consider this issue. For example, the World
Health Organisation estimates that about 30% of excess winter
deaths are directly attributable to living in cold, damp
environments, and we have to take that point into account, as
well as the additional cost of heating for medical reasons and of
paying for additional energy to support machinery. That is why it
is really important that we take steps to reduce energy bills in
a sustainable and long-term way. As the official Opposition, we
are calling for energy bills to be cut for good, which should
obviously start with a proper windfall tax on oil and gas giants,
continuing with our long-term mission to make Britain a clean
energy superpower by 2030.
Campaigners have highlighted other financial and family impacts
of having a terminal illness diagnosis, and one difficult
challenge faced by some families is that other forms of support
may not be available to them. For example, access to paid
childcare may diminish as a result of not being able to work,
although a family may still need it. I would like the
Government—I hope the Minister will address this in her speech—to
look at not only reforming the childcare system in broad terms
but addressing the specific issue faced by those who have a
family member with a terminal illness diagnosis. They should look
at the need for childcare at that difficult time and at the
unintended consequences of some aspects of Government policy.
There is a need for wider reform because, sadly, families,
children’s education and our economy are paying the price for our
current childcare system.
To conclude, I hope the Government will respond and continue to
work with the pensions industry. I look forward to the Minister
answering my questions about her work with the industry,
confirming Government policy on the state pension and committing
to publish suitably informative material about the research
carried out by the Department.
5.55pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
()
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. We
have been discussing a very sensitive issue, and I thank the hon.
Member for Angus () for bringing forward the
debate, and all hon. Members for their contributions.
The Government remain committed to ensuring that all citizens can
live with the dignity and respect they deserve. I think it would
help if I first set out the principles behind the state pension,
which is the foundation of state support for older people. In
2016, the system was reformed, with the introduction of the new,
simpler and more straightforward state pension as the basis for
private saving, to which people can add throughout their
lives.
The state pension is a contributory social benefit, financed
through the national insurance fund. The national insurance
system operates on a pay-as-you-go basis, meaning that today’s
contributors are paying for today’s social security entitlements
and pensions, while those who paid contributions in the past were
paying for the pensions of that time. In other words, the
contributors to the national insurance system do not accumulate
an individual pot of money that is personal to them.
People’s national insurance contributions do not just pay for the
state pension. They also entitle them—or, in certain
circumstances, their spouses—to contributory social security
benefits such as unemployment and bereavement benefits, which are
available on the basis of the rules applicable at the time the
claim is made, and about 20% of national insurance contributions
are paid into the NHS. Therefore, it is a question not so much of
a person paying for their own benefits, but of a general pooling
of resources to meet current benefit claims for all those covered
by the national insurance system.
A person’s contributions are geared towards liability to pay
rather than any likelihood of future benefit entitlement. In that
sense, it is similar to income tax rather than a private
insurance or pension scheme. It has always been an overriding
principle of the national insurance system that liability to
contribute exists, whether or not those contributions will
eventually give entitlement to a particular benefit. That is very
different from private pensions, where a person builds up a pool
that is specifically theirs, and where different laws rightly
exist.
Therefore, early access to a state pension would not be
appropriate in the case of terminally ill people, but there are a
variety of other benefits available to them. For those nearing
the end of their life, significant support is already available
through the welfare system. Hearing that an illness cannot be
cured must be a frightening and devastating experience, and I pay
tribute to the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and
Strathspey () for all his work on that with
the APPG. Our priority within the DWP is providing people with
financial support quickly and compassionately. The main way we do
that is through the special benefit rules, which have been
mentioned today and which are sometimes referred to as the
special rules. They give people nearing the end of their life
faster and easier access to certain benefits, without their
needing to attend a medical assessment or serve waiting periods.
In most cases, people will receive the highest rate of
benefit.
Changes to the special rules mean that thousands of people
nearing the end of their life will be able to claim fast-tracked
financial support from the benefits system six months earlier
than they were able to previously. Historically, people had to be
assessed by their healthcare professional as having six months or
less to live. That is known as the six-month rule, which the hon.
Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey referred to.
In July 2021, the Government announced that they intended to
replace the six-month criteria with a 12-month, end-of-life
approach. Last April, the Department made those changes to the
special rules for eligibility for universal credit and employment
and support allowance. In April 2023, the Department made similar
changes for PIP, disability living allowance and attendance
allowance. Those changes have been welcomed—as they have been
today—by the key charities active in the area, by the public and
by parliamentarians.
I will now expand on my earlier remarks on early access to state
pension. Unlike a personal or workplace pension, which can
potentially be drawn earlier, it has always been the case that
nobody can claim their state pension before they reach state
pension age. There are a wide range of working-age benefits
available to support people who are below state pension age .
Removing the clear boundaries between working-age and pensioner
benefits would create complexity and confusion. This is not
simply a monetary issue.
As an example of the complex issues relating to early access, the
value of an individual’s state pension is based on their
contribution record. Is the intention here to base it on the
contribution record of those who are, sadly, at the heart of
today’s debate? If the value of that state pension, based on the
person’s record, is deficient, would they be entitled to
means-tested pension credit? If they took their state pension
early, would it need to be actuarially reduced to reflect that?
Early access actually means lowering the age of entitlement to
state pension. At what age would it be set for this group? Would
it be 16, in line with the age—
I appreciate the Minister’s position, but I am not sure that many
people who are terminally ill, or those who work with them, will
be comforted by the technicalities she is laying out. She is
laying out the rules as they stand, but does she see no
opportunity for things to be adjusted so that the entitlement age
for those who are terminally ill could be adjusted, as it is in
other countries? Is there no opportunity or intention for the UK
Government to look at that?
The Department’s position is that help is available through
benefits other than the state pension. The state pension is not
an entitlement pool that exists; it is done on a pay-as-you-go
basis. Of course, it is different from private pensions, which I
will come to in a second, and there is more that we could do on
that front to make the situation easier and more
straightforward.
I of course accept the sentiment on which this proposal is
based—that those who are terminally ill should be financially
supported—but grounding this support on the state pension system,
because it is there, does not make for a practical proposition,
and that is in addition to my earlier points on the nature of the
state pension.
Hon. Members will be aware that the second Government review of
state pension age was published on 30 March 2023. The Government
noted the independent report’s recommendations on the rise from
67 to 68, but highlighted that was unable to take
into account the long-term impact of recent significant external
factors, bringing uncertainty to the data on life expectancy, the
economic position and labour market.
I raise that point because, as part of that process, independent
reviewers looked at early-access policies that would allow
variation in state pension age for certain groups. John Cridland
covered that in his 2017 independent review of state pension age.
More recently, , in her independent
review, recommended that the Government should look at such a
scheme for people who had spent long periods of their lives doing
physical work.
However, both reviewers recognised the real, practical
difficulties of designing and delivering such a scheme. We are
aware that when and why people leave the labour market will vary
and will be affected by a host of factors, including their
national insurance record, savings, health, caring
responsibilities and other factors. It would be impossible to
take account of all those factors in setting the state pension
age or to create rules for one particular group that would be
fair to others. In addition, the Government are mindful of the
fact that a universal state pension age has many benefits,
including giving a clear signal to those planning for
retirement.
Private pensions are very different. Through automatic enrolment,
we have extended pension saving, so more individuals will have
access to choices at retirement, with more than 10.8 million
people automatically enrolled into a workplace pension as of
March 2023. If someone has a defined benefit private or workplace
pension, they may be able to begin taking an income and/or lump
sums from their pension at any age due to ill health. That
provision is dependent on the rules of the scheme.
In addition, the generous tax benefits of saving into a defined
contribution pension provide individuals with the ability to
accrue savings for their retirement and provide them with freedom
and choice about how they access them. Individuals can normally
access those savings, without penalty, from age 55. However, to
address the point made by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member
for Reading East (), they may be able to access
their pension as a lump sum from any age if the scheme
administrator has received evidence from a registered medical
practitioner that the member is expected to live for less than
one year.
The hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West () raised a specific
example of where there were difficulties. I would be grateful if
she would write to me about that, and we can see whether there is
anything we can do to help.
The hon. Member for Reading East raised some points on energy.
The energy price guarantee has been extended for an additional
three months at its current level, from April to the end of June.
That will bring a typical household energy bill for dual-fuel gas
and electricity down to around £2,500 per year in Great Britain
and around £2,109 per year in Northern Ireland.
In conclusion, I have set out the range of support that the
Government provide for people with terminal illnesses. Although I
of course have the greatest sympathy for anyone in that position,
the Government do not believe that adjusting the state pension
system to support that group is the right approach, although
early access to private pensions is obviously a different
matter.
(in the Chair)
I call to wind up.
6.05pm
Thank you very much, Mr Sharma. I thank all hon. Members for
their contributions to this important discussion. I am
disappointed, if I am honest, that so much of the oxygen in the
room has been devoted to private pensions. There is a
fundamental—and, dare I say it, fundamentally clear—distinction
to make between private pensions and state pensions. People in
the workplace have a choice over whether to take out a private
pension or not; they do not have a choice over whether to pay
their national insurance contributions. I would
suggest—respectfully—that that is a fundamental, fairly obvious
difference between private and state pensions.
In her summing up, the Minister talked about the pay-as-you-go
nature of national insurance contributions. I think that most of
us, as Members of Parliament, already understand that there is no
national insurance pot and that national insurance is, in effect,
a distinct version of general taxation.
My hon. Friend is making a point about the state pension and the
mechanics that have been described. However, this situation—where
there is no specific pot—is the same in other countries, such as
Australia and Canada, which do allow early access to the state
pension. There is no difference in the mechanism for it, or
indeed the principle behind it; they have just applied the
compassion that is missing in this situation. Does my hon. Friend
not agree?
I agree entirely. A narrative has been advanced this afternoon
that, because this does not happen, it cannot happen. But, of
course, if we want to make it happen, it can happen. As my hon.
Friend points out, that is the case in other jurisdictions that
have more cognisance of, and respect for, not just the fiscal
elements, but the social contract that exists between society,
individuals and the Government that seek to represent them.
I think the point the Minister made in her summing up was that it
has never been possible to draw down a state pension early. Well,
I think we know that too. What we are seeking to debate here is
that that is not a cogent or sustainable position and that the
Government should therefore introduce legislation that makes it
possible—in very distinct and challenging circumstances —to draw
down that state pension early.
Of the range of reasons or excuses for not doing what has been
proposed, I would suggest that “introducing complexity to the
system” will fall on fairly stony ground with people who have
been diagnosed with a terminal illness. I am sure they would
imagine that a bureaucracy the like of which the UK has at its
command could sufficiently marshal the resources to tackle the
complexity of a very distinct change to the state pension regime
to allow them the dignity they sorely deserve.
The benefits system was also talked about a lot this afternoon.
Well, again, a bit like private pensions, that issue is distinct
from this one. Those state benefits—whether personal independence
payments or employment and support allowance—are a function of
the person’s or underlying health, whether or not they have been
diagnosed with a terminal illness. As every hon. and right hon.
Member can attest, many case studies show that those lumbering
regimes take a long time—too long—to come to fruition, and they
do not recognise the fact that, whether there is a pot there or
not, those people have substantively contributed to a system
that, in their time of need, has abandoned them. I respectfully
suggest to the Minister that she and the Government really should
think again.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered early access to pensions for
people with a terminal illness.
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