Pensions: Women’s State Pension Age

Debate between Baroness Pidding and Lord Freud

Wednesday 2nd November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

Let me go through the communications: 14 million personalised pension estimates have been sent out since 2000; 16 million unprompted forecasts were sent out with information on the raising of the pension age; 1 million letters were sent out between 2009 and 2011; 5 million letters were sent out between 2012 and 2013; and, in the 2012 survey it was discovered that only 6% of women retiring within 10 years thought that the pension age was still 60.

[Baroness Pidding (Con)]

My Lords, can my noble friend confirm that the new state pension provides a boost to women’s pension income?

[Lord Freud]

Many noble Lords took part in debates on this issue in the House. One issue that we discussed was the Green Paper about the new state pension and how that would affect the women involved. We made the concession. But after that we introduced the new state pension, which has been carefully focused on the poorest women. By 2030, 3 million women will be on the full rate and gaining £550 extra each year.