State Pension Age: Women

Anne Main Excerpts

Wednesday 30th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

Absolutely, I quite take the point that my hon. Friend makes. Clearly, specific issues need to be dealt with for this group, and I am going through several of them now. Some of these people will not be able to work, as I made clear at the start; this touches on one of the four principles I set out at the start of my speech. Working-age benefits are specifically designed to help such people, and I wish to make it clear that this group of women will be entitled to working-age benefits. If there are barriers to their claiming them, we need to remove those barriers.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

I, too, accept that the SNP proposal is totally ludicrous because it is totally unaffordable, but can the Secretary of State give me assurances on what can be done for WASPI women who say that they are finding it difficult to get back into work, with the jobcentres not geared up to help them, and who may have been out of the workforce for considerable time and do not have the skillset needed to get a good job?

[Damian Green]

Absolutely, and if my hon. Friend will bear with me for 30 seconds while I make one further point, I will then deal with precisely the point she raises, as I absolutely recognise it as an issue for many of these women. I should point out that the current average age of exit from the labour market for women is 63.1, which is well above the state pension age of 60 that the SNP proposal would take us back to. The number of older women aged 50 to 64 in work in 2016 stands at more than 4 million, which is a record high. That is one reason why the Government have extended the right to request flexible working and why job search requirements for those who are not in employment are adjusted to take account of individual circumstances. One purpose of the Green Paper on work and health that we have just produced is precisely to look at much better ways to join up the health, welfare and employment systems, so that we can deal with health conditions or disabilities that may be particularly prevalent in older women who want to work. We need to make the system much better than it has been in the past at removing those barriers, so that people can work.