State Pension Age for Women

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Wednesday 5th July 2017 Westminster Hall

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I thank my hon. Friend and north-east England colleague the Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) for securing the debate, and I thank everybody who has contributed this afternoon. Speaking of north-east colleagues, I also congratulate the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) on his promotion to Pensions Minister—it appears his jockeying for position in the political world has finally paid off. I was pleased to have a good—even friendly—working relationship with his predecessor, the hon. Member for Watford (Richard Harrington), and hope for the same with him.

We can start that right here with a friendly offer from the Opposition to work together across the House to deliver much fairer transitional arrangements for the much-wronged 1950s-born women, who saw their pension age accelerated by several years with little or no notice. The Minister is in a strong position to deliver change. All of us on the Opposition side, including the Government’s allies in the DUP, back the ’50s-born women’s cause. My hon. Friend the Member for Easington spoke of the 20 Conservative and DUP Members who have signed the WASPI pledge, but it gets even better. There are 37 MPs on the Government Benches who have supported the WASPI campaign either through membership of the all-party parliamentary group or through election pledges; others have done so today. That is enough to provide a majority in the House of those who want to see action taken to alleviate the difficulty faced by the most vulnerable women, now in their 60s. I am sure that each and every one of those Members will want to report back to their constituents that they have fulfilled their promises. It is quite a list, and I would love to share it with the Minister if he wants it.

I have spoken for the official Opposition on ’50s-born women more than half a dozen times since I accepted my role nine months ago, with other parties throwing their weight behind some form of support for the women who have been affected by these changes. Still—perhaps just until today—the Government have stuck their collective head in the sand. Yes, we now have a new Secretary of State and a new Pensions Minister—and, as has already been said, even a new Parliamentary Private Secretary, the hon. Member for North Devon (Peter Heaton-Jones), who is a declared WASPI supporter, having signed one of WASPI’s pledges to

“do all he can to work for a solution if elected”.

He could not be better placed to influence change for the better. Perhaps now the Government will take positive action and introduce new measures to reduce the strain on the most vulnerable women and men who have been affected by these increases in the state pension age.

I have heard from numerous women affected by the changes, and heard stories of their desperation and fear about how they will cope now that they have to wait even longer for their state pension. Does the new Minister understand how difficult it is for a woman in her 60s to retrain and gain employment? The job market and skills needed in today’s workplace are a different world from that of 40 years ago. What we have is a system that does not help older people retrain and get back into meaningful employment, a welfare system being torn to pieces, disabled people being humiliated through repetitive assessments, and now a state pension that is becoming increasingly difficult to access. Once again it is Labour, and others, who are standing up for the vulnerable. It is Labour calling out the injustice that ordinary people face, and Labour is the loudest voice demanding action. I know what the Conservatives are doing: they are trying to ignore the issue in the hope that the years will pass, the number of women affected by this measure will drop, and they will get away with leaving older people to struggle for many years to come.

We heard during the election that there is not a magic money tree—others have referred to that—but whenever the Government need funds to support their aims, they find it. There is no magic money tree, but they found that £1 billion to which others have referred to secure that deal with the DUP, to keep Theresa May in No. 10. That is just the up-front cost. The DUP will be back for more and Northern Ireland will get the priority investment that areas in the rest of the country also desperately need. I would never recommend selling out to the Tories, as the Lib Dems did in 2010, but I can understand our 10 DUP colleagues, striving to do the best for their communities with their £1 billion deal. I am sure many other MPs have wondered what they could do to help their constituency if they had their own £100 million magic money tree. It should not be about one versus the other. We must make investment where it is needed and protect the most vulnerable. Just as communities in Northern Ireland and elsewhere need a lifeline, so do ’50s-born women, many of whom are destitute.

The Labour party laid out its approach to reducing the strain on vulnerable and struggling women, which is to extend pension credit to those who were due to retire before the pension increase. That would alleviate the toughest circumstances and restore the faith and dignity that many feel they have lost. Extending pension credit would provide support worth up to £155 a week to half a million of the most vulnerable women who have been affected by the increase in the state pension age. We are continuing to look at other ways to ensure that those who need support receive it, but we need the Government to get on board and work with us. If the Minister would like a conversation about how we can deliver a cross-party approach to secure fair transitional arrangements to the most vulnerable ’50s-born women, I will be pleased to meet him. The general election result delivered a verdict that the Conservatives no longer have the full confidence of the country to govern. That strengthens the case for a joint approach in this case.

I have a number of questions for the Minister. Has he had any discussions with the new Secretary of State about the plight of ’50s-born women? Do they accept that many women had little if any notice of the change in their pension age, and that those women ought to be recompensed in some way? Will he and the Secretary of State agree at least to a review and then change their policy, offering at least the most vulnerable women something to get by on? That is what it is about—getting by.

Previous DWP Ministers wanted to help these women, but they had the Treasury doors slammed shut in their faces. In these very different days of unstable Government, I hope the Minister will now be able to assure the House—including those 37 Members of his party—that he takes this matter seriously and that he will work with us and others to deliver a fair and meaningful solution to this problem and, above all, win some friends and make himself the Government champion for these very wronged women.