Pensions — 4 Jun 2003 at 18:49

I beg to move,

That this House condemns the Government's extensive delay in appointing a new Minister for Pensions at a time of pensions crisis; further condemns the Government for pursuing a strategy of mass means testing of pensioners; notes that the Department for Work and Pensions will have satisfied its PSA target even if a million pensioners are still missing out on their entitlement to Pension Credit by 2006; further notes that the Pension Credit will be run on a computer system described by the previous Secretary of State as 'very decrepit'; believes that the Pensions Green Paper was an inadequate response to a range of pensions problems, including the large number of people of working age who are facing financial insecurity in retirement, particularly many women; further notes the continued insecurity of many members of defined benefit pension schemes and the lack of protection for working age scheme members when schemes are wound up; calls on the Government to address these issues as a matter of urgency; and further calls on the Government urgently to simplify the state pension system and to ensure that the basic state pension provides a firm foundation for income in retirement, with particular reference to the needs of older pensioners.

I beg to move, To leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:

"recognises that the UK has the largest stock of private pension saving in Europe and a tradition of pension partnership at the workplace which leaves it well placed to rise to the challenge of longer lives; welcomes the conclusion of the Work and Pensions Committee that the UK pensions system is "basically sound"; further recognises that there are pressures on pension systems at the moment and supports the Government's proposals, as outlined in the recent Green Paper, to renew the UK pensions partnership, to introduce further measures to bolster the UK system which better focus regulation on contemporary anxieties, and to increase security without increasing the overall costs of running pensions; strongly endorses the Work and Pensions Committee's judgement that "current policies have been successful in reducing pensioner poverty"; further recognises that this is of particular benefit to women; welcomes the state second pension which will provide lower earners, disabled people and carers, some 18 million people most of whom are women, with a better pension; believes that good pensions policy must be built on a foundation of the basic state pension, which has increased in real terms for three years in a row; and looks forward to the Pension Credit reform in October which will ensure that those with modest savings are properly rewarded for the first time."

Question put accordingly, That the original words stand part of the Question:-

The House divided: Ayes 202, Noes 313.

Debate in Parliament | Historical Hansard | Source |

Public Whip is run as a free not-for-profit service. If you'd like to support us, please consider switching your (UK) electricity and/or gas to Octopus Energy or tip us via Ko-Fi.

Party Summary

Votes by party, red entries are votes against the majority for that party.

What is Tell? '+1 tell' means that in addition one member of that party was a teller for that division lobby.

What are Boths? An MP can vote both aye and no in the same division. The boths page explains this.

What is Turnout? This is measured against the total membership of the party at the time of the vote.

PartyMajority (No)Minority (Aye)BothTurnout
Con0 139085.3%
DUP0 3060.0%
Independent0 10100.0%
Independent Conservative0 10100.0%
Lab313 (+2 tell) 0076.8%
LDem0 45 (+2 tell)088.7%
PC0 40100.0%
SNP0 4080.0%
UUP0 5083.3%
Total:313 202080.1%

Rebel Voters - sorted by party

MPs for which their vote in this division differed from the majority vote of their party. You can see all votes in this division, or every eligible MP who could have voted in this division

Sort by: Name | Constituency | Party | Vote

NameConstituencyPartyVote
no rebellions

About the Project

The Public Whip is a not-for-profit, open source website created in 2003 by Francis Irving and Julian Todd and now run by Bairwell Ltd.

The Whip on the Web

Help keep PublicWhip alive