State Pension Age: Women

Alan Brown Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2016 Westminster Hall

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Nuttall. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) not just on securing the debate, but on bringing forward the report and putting on the table some real facts and figures that the Government cannot deny.

I often tell constituents that I speak from a different world from the Government, and today the Government’s attitude to the WASPI women has proven that to be the case. I come from a world where women worked, often intermittently because of family commitments that involved childcare and family caring. Those women suffered lower pay and a lack of pension contributions, often due to part-time work. However, they always had the comfort of their contract with the Government that they would receive their pension at the age of 60. That contract was broken by the Pensions Act 1995, and the women were not notified. Yet the previous Minister continued to tell us that women were generally aware of what was happening with pension changes. They may have been generally aware, but they did not know that it was happening to them in their personal circumstances. That has been proven by the lack of notification and the fact that the information that did come from DWP was often conflicting.

In the Government’s world, these women were deemed suitable for a rapid increase in pension age. Into the bargain, it was deemed necessary for them to pay more national insurance contributions than they were originally contracted to. Since then, as the proverbial has started to hit the fan, we have all become aware of the bigger picture and the implications for the women. In the past year, the Government’s Budget contained inheritance tax cuts of £2.6 billion, capital gains tax cuts of £2.9 billion, corporation tax giveaways of £8.5 billion, higher rate tax relief of £3 billion, and individual savings account and savings relief of £2.5 billion. That is nearly £20 billion of tax giveaways for the people who live in the Government’s world, but not for the people who live in our world. At the same time, the Government brought in the right-to-buy discount on social housing, which will cost something like £12 billion.

This is an alien world to the one that me and my constituents inhabit, and yet the previous Minister hid behind the stock answer that the alternative transition will cost too much money, and asked where that money will come from and what cuts we, in opposition, would make. As we have heard, our preferred option would cost £8 billion and there is no need to make cuts. I have outlined simple tweaks that could be made to the Budget. There is £30 billion of surplus in the national insurance contributions fund, so the money is clearly there, and there is an autumn statement coming up in which the Government could do something.

The name “national insurance fund” is a misnomer, given the way things are happening. This generation of women has lived through the endowment mis-selling scandal and the payment protection insurance mis-selling scandal, but to have to live through the state mis-selling pensions is something else. It is no wonder these women are going to court. This is not about where to make cuts; it is about making the correct moral decision.

Last week I went to the funeral of a former councillor colleague, Jim Buchanan. He was a great campaigner for social justice and could not believe this position, which affected his wife—and, by default, the two of them as a couple—and many others. Jim actually joked that he would need to work longer to keep bringing extra money into the household. Instead, sadly, he died at 63, leaving behind a widow who is still affected by the pension increases. There are many such cases across the country.

I say to the Minister that there are now Tory Back Benchers involved, and there is cross-party support for the campaign. Do the right thing and act. The forthcoming autumn statement is a golden opportunity to do something that these fantastic WASPI women, and the local Ayrshire WASPI campaigners in my constituency, deserve.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure, as always, to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Nuttall.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) on securing this debate on an important issue. I am sure that ’50s-born women up and down the country will be listening eagerly to hear whether the Minister is prepared to do anything more to alleviate their plight. I also pay tribute to the many MPs across the House campaigning on the issue, particularly the all-party parliamentary group on state pension inequality for women, which is chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley).

I was never in any doubt when I took on my role as shadow Pensions Minister that this issue would be one of the biggest and most contentious, and I have been proven right. I have already had contact with groups from across the country, all campaigning on the same message: the previous Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition Government’s rapid changes to the state pension age are simply unfair.

Most of the women recognise, as others have said, that the state pension age must be increased in recognition of a workforce that is living longer and to address the gap in the retirement age between men and women. However, what cannot be accepted is the unfair and unjust approach that the previous Government took and that the current Government are not prepared to change. The policy has had failures from the start. There has been a severe lack of communication from the Government on the changes, leaving 2.6 million women in doubt about their circumstances and providing only uncertainty to potentially vulnerable people up and down the country.

The Minister has heard many Members outline the case on behalf of ’50s-born women. The hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber made a comprehensive speech that left us in no doubt about how unfair it all is and how the Government could change things. Although I do not recognise some of his financial numbers, we agree that some changes could certainly be funded if the Government had the will.

There is some Conservative support for the WASPI women. The hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous), who has now left, spoke about the lottery faced by ’50s-born women when it comes to retirement age. That is hardly fair. My hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) spoke about the different levels of poverty created by the Government’s policy, and another Conservative, the right hon. Member for Meriden (Dame Caroline Spelman), spoke about people in the latter stage of their careers who find themselves with caring responsibilities and little income to support them.

My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) spoke of bereaved women left with no support. My hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) described herself as a veteran of the campaign and reminded us that we have been having this debate and talking to the Government about the issue for more than five years, yet they do nothing. My hon. Friend the Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden) spoke of angry women, but also of anxious women, one of whom has had to sell her home and move away in order to make ends meet. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) spoke of the hardship of a woman in her sixties forced on to her hands and knees to scrub floors to make ends meet. The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) spoke of the half a million women given too few years to prepare for retirement, many of whom probably have some of the lowest incomes in the country.

I know of another example: a 61-year-old woman having to live with a friend, who receives just £8 a week from a private pension and is worried how she will afford basics such as dental treatment. She is like so many others: not fit for work, but not sick enough for employment and support allowance. She walks to the jobcentre every day, even in the snow, with her walking stick. She was let down by the last Parliament, and now this Government are letting her down.

I believe the Minister to be a caring and compassionate man who is looking for answers to a problem that is not of his making but is tricky for the Government. Indeed, the absence of Conservative Members in the Chamber illustrates how tricky this issue is for the Tory Government. Sadly, some very specific ideas put forward by the shadow Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams), have been rejected by the Government. That has probably been driven by the Treasury’s not being prepared to invest in a better quality of life for the women most affected.

That is very disappointing, but there is still time: the Minister has an ideal opportunity to do something positive. He can go to the Treasury before the autumn statement and fight for the resources that are needed, and he can then have clauses added to the Pension Schemes Bill that is currently in the other place, to allow the necessary changes. Then again, he may feel constrained by the threat of legal action from WASPI, which has raised more than £100,000 to challenge the Government’s failures in the courts. Perhaps he can confirm whether he feels that his hands are tied.

Contrary to what the Prime Minister claimed, the Opposition have tried to help her out of this hole and laid out plenty of options for the Government. Labour set out six transitional options and we are still waiting for the Government to properly address them and their potential. We proposed delaying the state pension age increase until 2020; capping the maximum state pension age increase from the Pensions Act 2011 at 12 months; keeping the qualifying age for pension credit on the previous timetable; allowing those affected to take a reduced state pension at an earlier age during the transition; extending the timetable for increasing the overall state pension age by 18 months so that it reached 66 by April 2022; or paying those affected a lower state pension for a longer period. Sadly, the Government chose not to follow up any of Labour’s suggestions.

Of course we recognise that solutions cost money, but the Government have made vast savings as a result of the late changes to the pension age and should be able to reinvest some of them to do something to help the vulnerable women who have been ruined because of a decision that they had no say in and certainly did not vote for.

[Alan Brown]

The hon. Gentleman says, rightly, that the Labour party has presented options. Does he welcome the fact that the Scottish National party is presenting a costed option? The Government cannot argue with the figures.

[Alex Cunningham]

I do not recognise some of the numbers that the SNP is using, but believe me, we want a solution just as much as the SNP. I believe that Conservative Members do too, and we need to work together to achieve that solution.

We have had half-hearted attempts from the Government to quell the voices of women who are rightly angry about these changes and the impact they will have on them and their families, but those attempts are not good enough. An independent review into the future of the state pension age that will not even consider the existing accelerated timetable is not good enough either. Sadly, previous Pensions Ministers have chosen to bury their heads in the sand, but I hope the new Minister is as anxious to find solutions as we are. Failing to use the Pension Schemes Bill to marshal in change would be a missed opportunity by the Government to address the concerns that are being raised by hundreds of thousands of women throughout the country. The Government must think again, and they must do so urgently to cause minimum hardship.

I am well aware that past Ministers have ducked the issue, claiming that sufficient transitional arrangements are in place. The accounts we have heard today, and many others that I am sure the Minister is aware of, demonstrate that those arrangements are totally inadequate. Despite his past misgivings, the Minister can provide real hope for the women affected. I hope he will take the opportunity to do so today.