Transitional State Pension Arrangements for Women

Angela Crawley Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2016 Westminster Hall

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson. I congratulate the WASPI campaign on getting this debate on to the parliamentary agenda.

Like many MPs, over the past few months I have had a flurry of emails from women who are extremely concerned about their future and how the equalisation will affect them financially. They are rightly angry about the lack of fairness. The fact that women were given just two years’ notice of a six-year increase in their state pension age, while men received six years’ notice of a one-year rise, is representative of just how unfair the changes are.

I obtained data from the House of Commons Library, which estimates that around 4,470 women in my constituency will be affected by the changes to the state pension age. If the Library can find out that information, why on earth can the DWP not find it out and have the courtesy to tell all the women affected? On the basis of the figures given by the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham), some 1,300 women in my constituency are still not fully aware of the changes.

It would be wrong to debate the changes without discussing the knock-on effect they will have on older women who have planned their retirement but now remain on the job market. Many people in the room will know that we have a real issue in this country with the employment of older women, who are often on low pay and in zero-hours contracts. Many of those women had career breaks. Many earned less than men doing equivalent work, and many suffered gender discrimination in the era before the Equal Pay Act 1970. Many were working at a time when few women worked in well remunerated professional roles with occupational pensions, as other Members have mentioned.

[Angela Crawley (Lanark and Hamilton East) (SNP)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that we have ultimately failed to take into account the gender pay gap and the inequality between women and men for the many women who have been in low-paid work and have caring responsibilities?

[Ruth Cadbury]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right; this situation compounds a number of other inequalities that women have faced in the workplace.

One constituent of mine was not informed of the changes and only found out due to divorce proceedings. She was formerly a pro tennis player and a coach. Due to the nature of her field, she had to retire from the sport as she got older and retrained in childcare to get her through to 60. It is now not only too late for her to retrain in another field but too early for her to retire. She is stuck struggling with the demands of caring for small children and counting down the days until she can finally retire.

Women have emailed me to say that not only are they finding it difficult to find jobs, but the financial burden is causing breakdowns in family relationships. That is why I urge the Government to consider making transitional arrangements that truly work for the women adversely affected by the changes to state pensions. I received an email from a constituent outlining her case and how the changes affected her, and I was struck by her final sentence:

“As a single woman, my future is bleak. As a woman with significant underlying health issues, my future is dire.”

We cannot overlook the misery that this change is causing people. The former Pensions Minister, Steve Webb, said that his one regret during his tenure was that he

“pushed too hard and too fast on raising women’s state pension age.”

I plead with the current Minister to learn from the mistakes of the past.