State Pension Age: Women

Debate between Sammy Wilson and Ian Blackford

Wednesday 29th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Ian Blackford]

I am stunned. [Interruption.] I am speechless, because we should put that out in a leaflet. We are not talking about tea and sympathy; we are talking about WASPI women having to rely on benefits, and they are going to get nothing from the hon. Gentleman—that is crystal clear. It is obvious where he stands on this issue.

Today, these Tories should deliver the generational fairness they promised in their manifesto. I sincerely welcome the backing of some 37 Conservative MPs who expressed support for WASPI women during the general election—37 Tory MPs signed the pledge. We will be watching this afternoon, as will the WASPI women, and these MPs will be expected to do what they promised in the election campaign and stand up for the WASPI women. That support stretches from the Tory Back Benches across to the Benches of the Democratic Unionist party—to our friends from the DUP. Page 9 of the DUP manifesto contained a pledge to protect pensions, with the announcement that the DUP would:

“Support an end to the unfair treatment of women pensioners”.

I call on DUP Members to deliver on their pledges made to the WASPI women.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

I am disappointed at the tone that has been set in this debate. Despite the fact that we have a motion that could command widespread support, the tone of the debate has not been as I expected. Let me make something clear: we made a manifesto pledge on this issue, and the reason why I am here as my party’s spokesman is that we do support this and we will go through the Lobby on it. However, the WASPI women would be better served if we had a debate that was not divisive and not about point scoring, because there is no party—whether Labour, the Liberals or the Conservatives—that has not caused some of this problem.

[Ian Blackford]

I am grateful that DUP Members will be going through the Lobby, but let me point out that we are trying to set out the facts of the arguments in this House. These women have for too long been let down by politicians, so let us use the opportunity we have today to give them the result they deserve. Thanks to freedom of information requests, we learned that the Department for Work and Pensions only began writing to women born between April 1950 and April 1955 in April 2009, and did not complete the process until February 2012. So it was writing to women to inform them about changes in legislation that go back to 1995 but it did not start the formal notification period for 14 years. Taking 14 years to begin informing women that a pension they had paid into was being deferred is quite something. Can we imagine the outcry if a private pension provider was behaving in such a way? There would be an outcry in this House and, no doubt, legal action. When we consider that entitlement to a state pension is earned through national insurance contributions, where many women have made contributions over 40 years, this is stunning.

A woman born on 6 April 1953 who, under the previous legislation, would have retired on 6 April 2013 would have received a letter from the DWP in January 2012 with the bombshell that she would not be retiring then—she would be retiring in July 2016. That is three years and three months later than she might have expected, and this is with 15 months’ notice. That is what Conservative Members have been defending, and it is no wonder the WASPI women are insulted. We are talking about 15 months’ notice before what they thought was a contract they had with the Government was simply to be ripped up.

A pensions White Paper published in December 1993 stated:

“In developing its proposals for implementing the change the Government has paid particular attention to the need to give people enough time to plan ahead and to phase the change in gradually”.

Not much there that I would disagree with, but when you accept the need for people to plan ahead, you need to write to them and tell them.