Transitional State Pension Arrangements for Women

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Wednesday 24th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Owen Smith]

The hon. Lady is entirely right. Even if 40% of women were unaware, that is 40% too many. As I said, five or six other surveys were done by academics and those in other institutions that suggested that 80% of women were unaware that they were going to be affected, so the reality is that the number was far greater.

The scale of this problem only truly started to dawn on people when the Government decided to double down on their calamity with the Pensions Act 2011.

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

My hon. Friend is about to come on to the injustice of the 2011 Act. Is not the real issue not only that these ladies have been hit not once but twice by an increase in their state pension age, but that no transitional arrangement was put in place? Is that not why it is absolutely right that we support the Labour motion to get the Government off the fence and provide these ladies with the transitional arrangement they deserve?

[Owen Smith]

This House and Government Members would do well to heed the words of my hon. Friend, because, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey), he has been the doughtiest campaigner in this House on behalf of these women. He speaks the truth when he says that Members from across the House should back our motion to provide transitional protections for them.

The 2011 Act not only broke the Government’s promise that the pension age for women was not going to rise until 2020, but broke the promise that no rises would occur without at least 10 years’ notice, because the women who suffered the double blow were given just two years’ notice. The former Pensions Minister, Steve Webb, has described that decision as an ill-informed “mistake”. He tried to make up for it in office, and secured some mitigation for 300,000 of the women who were due to see their state pension age go up by more than 18 months. The Minister on the Front Bench will no doubt mention this shortly, telling us that it cost £1.1 billion, but I bet he will not remind us that his predecessor was looking for £3 billion in order to offer these transitional protections. I suspect he may only say sotto voce that half of that £1 billion went not to women but to men.

--- Later in debate ---

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

I start by offering you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and the House my apologies, because unfortunately I will not be able to be here for the winding-up speeches—I am on Front-Bench duty in Westminster Hall from 4 o’clock. No discourtesy is intended either to the shadow Minister or the Minister who will be closing the debate.

As always, it is a pleasure to take part in the debate, although I am a little saddened by the Minister’s response to what is a fairly clear motion tabled by the Labour Front-Bench team. We are calling on the Government to set out a process of transitional arrangements for the group of women affected, who have been served a real injustice. I am not concerned about the who, where, how or what. When my kids are squabbling, they get put on the naughty step; I am not bothered about the who, why, where or what. We are where we are, as the WASPI women appreciate. The real injustice is that they have been denied fair transitional arrangements.

When we were discussing the pension scheme for Members of Parliament, we put in place, I accept through an independent system, a 10-year transitional arrangement, so that right hon. and hon. Members who were within 10 years of their normal retirement age were able to remain on the old House of Commons system, and the rest of us were moved on to the new IPSA system. I say to the Minister that if it is good enough for us, it is good enough for those women, and they deserve the freedom to have enough time to make alternative arrangements. Those were the arguments that were made when our pension changes came before us. There should not be one rule for us and one rule for people outside this Chamber. I argue, reasonably, that they should expect the same treatment that we expected when there were changes to our pension system.

I realise that the Minister currently sitting on the Front Bench is not the Pensions Minister; the Pensions Minister is in the other place. I have to say, being kind to the Minister, who seemed tetchy in his response, that the fact that he was not the Pensions Minister probably showed. I will tell him what the WASPI women are calling for—I quote from their petition:

“The Government must make fair transitional arrangements for all women born on or after 6th April 1951 who have unfairly borne the burden of the increase to the State Pension Age”.

They are not asking for changes to legislation; they are asking for fairness. That brings me back to the motion, which will be voted on. We all have the chance in the Division Lobby later today not just to offer platitudes to the women affected but to show that we mean it. In the motion we call on the Government

“to bring forward proposals for transitional arrangements for”

those women, because they deserve fairness. That is why we called for this debate. I commend the shadow Secretary of State for securing it, because it allows us to have a vote and to show these women that we mean what we say.