Women’s State Pension Age Communication: PHSO Report

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts

Tuesday 17th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for her opening comment. I fully recognise the point that she is making. There will be women out there who are very disappointed. There will be many women who expected to retire at 60 and then found that they could not. I hope she will agree with me that one of the biggest drivers of that concern and of the impact was the decision of the previous Government to accelerate those state pension changes in 2011. That meant that they were brought forward very sharply, which had a significant impact on a number of women. However, that is not what the ombudsman was talking about today, it is not what the report was about, and it is not what we are doing here.

I should say at the outset that letters are only ever one part of any communications system. There was extensive communication. The ombudsman found that our communications between 1995 and 2004 were just as they should be. The ombudsman was also aware that a lot of other kinds of activity were going on. There were advertising campaigns, work with employers, and all sorts of information going out. The letters were only one small part of that.

The 28-month delay in those letters has led us to believe not that there are not women who had hoped to retire at 60 and were not able to do so, but that this injustice was not caused by the failure that we described. It is because of this that we simply do not feel able to do it. We had to come back to the evidence. Is the evidence there that that specific act of maladministration caused that injustice? We do not believe that it did, and therefore we do not believe that it was appropriate to provide a compensation scheme.

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

My Lords, I beg to move that the House—

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I would like to come back briefly with a further question, as there is time; we do have time for Back-Bench questions as well as Front-Bench questions. As regards the future, can the Minister give us a feel for how progress on AI is going in the department in respect of the data for WASPI women?

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

My Lords, could I—

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

I apologise to the noble Lord, but he was not present at the start of the Statement, so he cannot participate.