Pensions

Baroness Altmann Excerpts

Wednesday 13th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to be allowed to speak in the gap as this is an issue close to my heart. The 2010 coalition agreement promised there would be no changes to women’s state pension age before 2020, but a few months later Ministers decided to start increases from 2018. I tried to persuade the coalition Government that increasing women’s state pension age a second time before the original 1995 changes were finished was wrong. I still believe that. The implementation has caused regrettable injustice, distress and anger, and I hope my noble friend will forgive me for highlighting these issues in case she is not fully aware of them.

First, no man faced an increase of more than one year while these women, who generally have much lower private pensions and who had been disadvantaged in state and private pensions throughout their lives, had increases of up to a year and a half on top of the previous three, four or five-year rises. Secondly, women were given only five to eight years’ notice while around the same time the Government announced that it would not be fair to make any changes to the pension arrangements of public sector workers within 10 years of pension age. Such double standards were difficult for many women to accept. Thirdly, and most importantly, many women did not know about the 1995 changes, so in 2011 while Parliament believed it was increasing their pension age by up to one and a half years, some women effectively faced a delay of up to six years.

I also did not realise in 2011 that the Labour Government from 1997 to 2009 did not make sure that women knew about the changes in 1995 so that they could plan for the delay. Even worse than this, many 1950s-born women were lulled into believing that their pension age would be 60. Around 2004, the department wrote to many of these women to tell them how much or how little state pension they were in line for, but those letters did not tell them that their pension age would not be 60. As a letter about their state pension did not mention their pension age, women would naturally assume that they would get it at 60, like every woman they had ever known. Even in 2015, some official websites still listed the women’s state pension age as 60.

I know this is a difficult issue, and I sympathise hugely with my noble friend. Believe me, I understand how uncomfortable her situation must be, but I hope that we can find a way to help the good women who are facing real hardship and show our understanding of the position in which they find themselves.