Business of the House

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Thursday 22nd July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend raises a very important and sad issue, and I know that the whole House will want to send its condolences to Harper’s family.

The Government are working with the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, the Chartered Trading Standards Institute, the Child Accident Prevention Trust and the British and Irish Portable Battery Association. The Office for Product Safety and Standards has produced safety messages on how to keep children safe. It is obviously important that children are kept safe and that this risk is understood more widely by parents. I note that my hon. Friend presented her Button Batteries (Safety) Bill yesterday, and it will receive its Second Reading, according to the will of the House, on the first sitting Friday after the recess. I will, of course, pass on her comments to my right hon Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

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

I once said in a debate on the 1950s-born women’s pension issue that wasps are a nuisance. They are pests and they buzz around. If we bash them away, they get angry, and when they get really angry they sting us. The WASPI women are nuisances; they are pests; they will not go away; and they are stinging. This week, the ombudsman found maladministration in how the Department for Work and Pensions treated those women. Today, the House rises for the summer recess with no statement on this issue or an opportunity for Ministers to be questioned. There is great interest and support for this issue across party lines. I am co-chair of the all-party group on state pension inequality for women, along with the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous). Will the Leader of the House please guarantee that, in the first week back, DWP Ministers will come to the House and make a statement specifically on this issue? If not, what mechanisms does he think will be available to ensure that we make it happen?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The WASPI campaigners—they are in all constituencies—have campaigned hard and long in the cause that they support, and, as with all our constituents, they do so with the right to do so as part of parliamentary accountability. The ombudsman’s report yesterday is part of a process. It is not the end of the process, as there is more to come from the ombudsman. It is worth remembering that both the High Court and the Court of Appeal have supported the actions of the Department for Work and Pensions under successive Governments, dating back to 1995, and the Supreme Court refused the claimants’ permission to appeal. It was a move towards gender equality that was decided more than 25 years ago to make the state pension age the same for men and women, and that seems to me to be a good and justifiable policy objective.

As regards how to achieve this matter being debated on the Floor of the House, there is, of course, the pre- Adjournment debate later today. Otherwise, the hon. Gentleman knows very well how to get debates in this House: through the Backbench Business Committee; Opposition days, of which one has been announced; and, of course, Adjournment debates.