State Pension Age (Women)

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Thursday 7th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mhairi Black]

It is noticeable, and a pity, how few Conservatives have turned out.

It is important to highlight that the Government did not send out a single letter to women. There was no official correspondence between the Government and the individuals affected, alerting them to the changes that were going to happen to them. Even the previous Pensions Minister, Steve Webb, recognised that not everybody knew that the changes had happened in the 1995 Act.

A response to a freedom of information request states that the Department eventually wrote to individuals affected and that

“Mail campaigns took place between 2009 and 2013.”

That is 14 years after the 1995 Act. Women were not personally notified by anybody official until 14 years after the changes came in. That is 14 fewer years that women have had to prepare and to try to make alternative arrangements.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

The hon. Lady is making an important point. In a nutshell, is not the injustice to that set of women the fact that they have had not one but two changes to the state pension age, that the process has been accelerated and that there are no transitional arrangements in place? Is not that the real unfairness?

[Mhairi Black]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s points.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to take part in this Backbench Business Committee debate. I commend the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mhairi Black) for her opening remarks and pay tribute to the WASPI campaign, particularly to Marion and Anne and all the other ladies who helped campaign on this important issue. I have worked long and hard with them over the past few months. We have had meetings with my hon. Friends the Members for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) and for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds). I lobbied my constituents with the WASPI group in Morrisons in Denton recently and I think that I was the first in this Parliament to raise the issue at Prime Minister’s Question Time. I am therefore glad that the subject has been brought to the Floor of the House for a full debate.

A very real injustice has been done to this group of women born in the 1950s. We can go through the history again: there have been two changes to their state pension age and, if that were not bad enough, the real injustice has been the acceleration of the process, which has left many women who were not expecting the changes having to make alternative arrangements. When it came to the private pensions of Members of Parliament, those within 10 years of their normal state pension age could remain on the old scheme, but the group of women we are considering have had no chance to put in place their alternative arrangements.

[Barbara Keeley]

Government Members have asked Opposition Members for our transitional arrangement suggestions. I made some. I gave examples from other countries: some have bridge pensions while others look after people who are made redundant. It is up to the Government, who have made the £30 billion pension grab, to come up with ideas.

[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend is right. When the Pensions Act 2011 was debated in the House of the Commons, the current Secretary of State said,

“but we will consider transitional arrangements.”—[Official Report, 20 June 2011; Vol. 530, c. 52.]

Where are they? Those ladies are still waiting. It is about time the Secretary of State came to the Dispatch Box and set out those transitional arrangements, because those women cannot wait forever.

We have already had the first U-turn from the former Pensions Minister, who said that he was not properly briefed. That says a lot about the calibre of Liberal Democrat Ministers in the former coalition Government. Now we have a Pensions Minister in the other place, who was a champion for those ladies until she took the Queen’s shilling. She now says that she cannot do anything about it. What utter nonsense. What is the point of having a Minister if she cannot do anything about it? It is time that Ministers in the Department for Work and Pensions got off their backsides and did something to help those women.

Following on from my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris), I will give the Minister some friendly advice. I appreciate that it is not his area of responsibility but that of the noble Lady at the other end of the building who speaks on pensions. My hon. Friend likened the WASPI ladies to wasps. Wasps can be pests and nuisances. They cannot easily be bashed away and, when that happens, they get angry and come back. If they are really annoyed, they sting and, unlike bees, they can sting more than once. Let us have some justice for these ladies; it is long overdue.