Pension Review: Phase 2

Debate between Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle and Baroness Sherlock

Wednesday 18th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

I think that might be slightly above my pay grade. The Government want to make sure that everybody can save an appropriate amount for retirement. For that to work, one of the starting points is that people have to earn enough in their working lives to be able to have an option of saving anything. The measures that the Government have taken, in our plans for jobs and in looking at what we are doing with the national living wage and to try to drive good work, are about trying to drive economic growth, get more people into good jobs and help them to stay there and to grow in their careers. The work has been done around the Get Britain Working White Paper. All the plans around that are trying to get people to develop in their working life and to be more productive to drive economic growth. That is a win-win. It is good for the country and good for individuals and their families.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords—

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[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

Returning to the case of the WASPI women and the Government’s ruling against them, can the Minister tell me whether the fact that the Government have overruled the evidence-based decision of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman is likely to be open to legal challenge? If there is a legal challenge, will the fact that the Labour Party campaigned for WASPI women during the election campaign have an impact on the case?

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, I think anything is open to legal challenge if one can find a lawyer to take a case. There have been legal challenges in the past on this decision. If there are again challenges, the Government will present their case. The noble Baroness mentioned that the ombudsman looked at the evidence —so did the Government. We looked very carefully at the evidence. One of the things we have been doing for the past six months is going through line by line every piece of evidence that the ombudsman offered, looking at the evidence we have and what we understand, and we reached evidence-driven conclusions. That is the basis on which we made the decision.

I recognise that it is not a decision that everybody is happy with. I recognise that there will be women born in the 1950s who are disappointed. But I am also convinced that most of the disappointment and, indeed, much of the campaigning and noise were actually about the change in the state pension age and its timing, rather than the very narrow decision that the ombudsman took. The ombudsman said that it was simply about the way DWP communicated with people about the state pension age. The ombudsman found that between 1995 and 2004 the communications were absolutely fine. There was a 28-month period when, although other communications were out there, such as campaigns, employer campaigns et cetera, those letters should have been sent earlier. We have accepted that, and if any legal case comes we will present our case in court, as we always do.