The gender pension gap

That this House expresses concern about the gender pension gap which stands at around 40.3 per cent, more than twice the gender pay gap of 17.3 per cent, representing a differential in pension income of around £7,500 a year; understands that women’s lower average lifetime earnings, as well as the increased likelihood of their taking breaks from paid employment or reducing working hours, often to undertake caring responsibilities, directly reduces their retirement earnings, increasing the likelihood of later-life poverty; recognises the effect of the speed of state pension age equalisation which meant many women had insufficient time to prepare for retirement; notes that the State Pension triple lock does not apply to pension credit, discriminating against the oldest and poorest pensioners, who are disproportionately women; is perturbed by the ongoing anomaly created by the inflexibility of the National Insurance system which excludes those, disproportionately women, who may have several jobs but which fall below the Lower Earnings Threshold, and so do not receive any credit for their State Pension; is alarmed that anyone earning less than £10,000 a year, mostly women, is not automatically enrolled into a pension and will not therefore benefit from their employers’ contributions; is aware that lower lifetime earnings mean lower private pensions and that women were often forced to leave company pensions if they married or worked part-time and tended to work in occupations where employer pensions were less prevalent; and calls for urgent measures from the Government to boost women’s pension income.