State Pension Age: Women

Debate between Tonia Antoniazzi and Baroness Laing of Elderslie

Thursday 31st January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Karen Lee (Lincoln) (Lab)]

As my hon. Friend knows, I was a nurse, and I am of the WASPI age too. A lot of the people I worked with had worked long and hard all their lives, as care assistants and housekeepers as well as nurses. They did not earn enough money to save anything. Now the goalposts have moved and they cannot retire, but they are too old to do that really hard, physical work. It is terrible—shameful. Yet we hear a lot of warm words about looking after our NHS staff.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. Let me give a little bit of advice to the hon. Lady. She turned her back on the Chair, and that means that she cannot be properly heard; and she cannot go on speaking when she has sat down again. It is not a silly, old-fashioned rule—it just works better if everybody looks the right way and stands up to speak. It is simple.

[Tonia Antoniazzi]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point, because it is true. When people are doing physical jobs that they have done all their lives but now have bad knees or a bad back and are suffering, it is impossible.

Women are busting a gut to keep their families together. These are women I know like Pauline and Gaynor in Swansea who consider themselves to be better off than others but who, when they tell me their own stories, bring me to tears. That is why I do not want to let the Government off the hook. As parliamentarians, we cannot allow this Government to hide behind a judicial review.

I am grateful to the Speaker for granting this Adjournment debate, because the frustration of the 1950s women is unabated. Today they are here, they are watching online, and they are listening to us intently. The strength of feeling is real. The clip of me on my Facebook page asking the Leader of the House a question two weeks ago had 1,300 shares and hundreds of comments and likes—from across the United Kingdom, not just Gower and Swansea. No amount of can-kicking and hiding behind sub judice will make these excellent and committed women go away. This is an opportunity for the Minister to give some clear answers, do the right thing and restore faith, which I hope he will do.

Energy Policy

Debate between Tonia Antoniazzi and Baroness Laing of Elderslie

Monday 25th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab)]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

And finally, the prize for patience and perseverance goes to Tonia Antoniazzi.