State Pension Age: Women

Debate between Lord Evans of Rainow and Pat McFadden

Wednesday 30th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)]

I am grateful to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to speak in this important debate. I am a little surprised that there are so few Members on the SNP Benches.

There is a clear need for equalisation of the state pension age. We are all agreed on that. We have an ageing population. People are leading healthier, longer lives. Given that an ever greater proportion of the population are drawing pensions, while an ever smaller proportion are contributing through national insurance, the pension system risks becoming unsustainable without the important measure that we debated and voted on in 2011.

On the most fundamental level, however, we as a House should champion equality. The new single-tier pension is much fairer and simpler. People who have worked for 35 years will receive £8,000 a year. It is a very simple process: 35 years of work will give us £8,000. I have already worked for 35 years, but I will not qualify for my pension until I am 67; the same applies to Mrs Evans. As we all live longer and healthier lives, that will increase, I am sure. Let us make that clear, here and now. The single-tier pension also takes into consideration for the first time the time off that people take to have children—maternity and paternity leave.

I supported the measure. When I was a member of the Work and Pensions Committee we investigated the matter. I contacted the DWP to find out my retirement date, and I have to say to the Minister that the document I received was rather drab—not the most exciting document to read. The first time I went through that process, in 2013, I was told I was going to retire at 65; when I did it in 2014, the answer was 66; and the following year it went up to 67. I had to read the documents very carefully indeed, so I think people can be forgiven for not realising that their retirement date had changed. I encourage the Government to take a look at the personalised documents that are regularly produced, with a view to perhaps introducing a little colour—for example, making the retirement date red and easier to see.

[Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his comments about information, but this is not a small mistake. I have constituents who will lose £30,000 or more by the shifting of the goalposts. Does he not think that because of the failure to communicate the changes, the Government have a duty to look again at transitional arrangements for the women affected?

Holocaust Memorial Day

Debate between Lord Evans of Rainow and Pat McFadden

Thursday 24th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)]

I am pleased to be among the MPs who have co-sponsored today’s debate with the hon. Gentleman. The theme of Holocaust memorial day is “Reaching generations”. Does he agree that an important feature of that is the passage of time? The Holocaust Educational Trust does extremely valuable work in schools, but as time passes—the hon. Gentleman mentioned 68 years—it is important to record testimony. As each year passes, there are fewer and fewer living survivors, and if we are to learn the lessons from the holocaust before they fade into the distance, it will be important to record as much testimony as possible so that we can remain as vigilant as possible. The hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) has just issued a warning: as much as we might believe that those atrocities should never happen again, the danger of them happening again has not gone away.

[Graham Evans]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a very valid point, and I agree with him. As people grow old and pass on, it is up to us, our children and our children’s children to ensure that their story is always told and never forgotten. When I was a little lad of 10 in my home town, I remember a Cheshire Regiment soldier who had been part of the liberation of Belsen telling me about the camp. I had had no comprehension of such things as a 10-year-old; I had always thought that we had been the plucky Brits who fought the war and beat the Germans. The idea of the holocaust had never occurred to me. I remember him telling me how he had been affected by coming upon Belsen as a 19-year-old British soldier, and how it had affected him for the rest of his life. Hon. Members might remember Jeremy Isaacs’ award-winning series “The World at War”, which came out in the early 1970s. Programmes such as those stay fresh in the mind because they used survivors from the camps and the genocide. It is important that they are still shown on television and on the internet. I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East for making that very good point.