State Pension Age

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 21st November 2017 Westminster Hall

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

Mr Hollobone, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, which has seen more than a dozen people take part in this short debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Hugh Gaffney) on securing his first of many Westminster Hall debates. I very much believe that he is loud and proud. I love that voice, which reminds me so much of home, although I left the area when he was just three years old. He made an excellent speech; it was a trip right through the social security system and how it is failing so many of our people.

We could talk about many things today, from the plight of the ’50s-born women whom the Government are continuing to ignore, to the ill-advised increase in the state pension age that was brought in by the Tory Government and which hits the poorest and most vulnerable people hardest. Several Members have addressed the WASPI issue and the Minister will probably be pleased to hear that I will not dwell on the ’50s-born women. However, as I said in the House last week, this issue will not go away and the Government need to act, starting with an extension to pension credit, giving women the option to claim their state pension two years earlier at a slightly reduced rate. That is not a complete solution, but it would provide something for that very wronged group.

Then we have the issue of increasing the state pension age. Age UK said that it is reasonable to look at the state pension age as longevity increases, but it needs to be accompanied by support to enable people to work longer and protection for those who cannot. I share Age UK’s view, but I must stress that longevity is not enough. We need to consider quality of life and health. That said, University College London’s Sir Michael Marmot says that increases in life expectancy have slowed down or halted, but even if we might be living a little longer but not living healthily for any longer, increasing the state pension age is bad news, particularly for the poorest in our country and those with ill health.

The inequalities are not illustrated better anywhere than in my constituency, where a man in the poorest ward can expect to live 16.4 years less on average than a man in the most affluent ward. The man in the poor ward may have started work at 16 and paid national insurance contributions throughout his adult life, and is more likely to have been in a physically demanding job and to have experienced ill health at a younger age. He may even be lucky to get the state pension for a handful of years before dying. Contrast that with a more affluent, professional person, who may not have started work until his 20s, who retired at 60 because he could afford to, and who then picked up his state pension when he was still fit and healthy enough to enjoy it. The manual worker will have worked more years and may have paid contributions for 50 years—perhaps 10 more than the professional. How is that just? How is that fair? We have heard that people die younger, and the illustration from Glasgow of somebody dying aged 63 and never reaching state pension age is very relevant.

The Cridland review, which will effectively cost 7 million people £10,000 each, failed to come up with an answer to this question, but even John Cridland spoke of the need for greater support for people in hard physical jobs that offer them limited chance, if any, of a few years of healthy retirement.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

We have not yet heard anything from the hon. Gentleman about costs. Does he accept that unless we raise the retirement age, the system of paying for the state pension will be financially unsustainable?

[Alex Cunningham]

Cost will always be an issue, but some have made the point that we need to base decisions on fact and new data. The data are changing. People will not necessarily live longer, so the cost might not be higher in the longer run.

We believe that we should have a variable state pension age whereby a person’s work background, health and income are considered, with their retirement age being based on their life expectancy, not just the national average. The proposal to raise the state pension age even further all but wipes out the chances of many of our people enjoying a few years of retirement in good health. The state pension should be flexible and recognise the contribution that people have made to our country, and the system should be designed to work for everyone.

I really worry about the pressure facing older people in our country. The cost of living is going up and their pension is getting further away. At the same time, many are unwell and unable to work, or they may be caring for even more elderly parents or young children, making a very different but relevant contribution.

I wonder whether the Minister is even aware that 1.9 million pensioners now live below the poverty line. That means more struggling older people on social security and extra strain on the NHS when vulnerable people are living in poverty, all within a system that has seen that value of income shrink since 2010. I referred to older people with caring responsibilities. Many will fall short of the 35 years of contributions that are needed to secure a full pension. We need to do things for all those people, for all the different groups in our community, because that would be the fair and right thing to do.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

If the Minister can finish his remarks no later than 5.27 pm, Mr Gaffney will have time to sum up.

--- Later in debate ---

[Guy Opperman]

I will make two points about that. The first is that anybody who proposes a situation involving framing new legislation that lacks equality between men and women will have to deal with the Equality Act 2010, because any new transitional provision runs the risk of creating a new inequality between men and women and being subject to challenge.

Further to the proposal made by the hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill, the Labour party’s position in its manifesto, as agreed with by the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mhairi Black) and presumably the Scottish National party, is to reject any increase in the state pension age above 66. That would involve scrapping the Pensions Act 2007, the work of the Labour Government in the Blair-Brown years. Costs have been mentioned; let me be clear that the costs of capping the rise in state pension age at 66 in 2020 would be £250 billion higher than proceeding according to the timetable set out by John Cridland.

[Alex Cunningham]

The Minister referred to Labour policy, but he edited it to a few words. We actually said that we wanted to freeze the pension age at 66 and set up our own commission to consider longevity and pensions issues and how we could help the more vulnerable in our society.

[Guy Opperman]

I will quote the hon. Gentleman’s party manifesto to him, just so we are utterly clear.