State Pension Underpayments and Arrears for Women Debate
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Baroness Janke
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State Pension Underpayments and Arrears for Women
Baroness Janke Excerpts(2 years, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
My Lords, I have no idea about underpayments to men. In terms of underpayment to women, we are doing an exercise; we are going through the whole system to work out who should have had the money and we will get it to them as quickly as possible.
Baroness Janke (LD)
My Lords, the Government have explicitly ruled out divorced women from this exercise, yet divorced women’s pensions are really complex and the scope for error is huge. Does the Minister agree with me that to discriminate against divorced women in this way is indefensible? When will the Government act on this, as the Public Accounts Committee recommends, and put an end to such obvious injustice and discrimination?
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
Even if somebody is divorced, their ex-husband’s contributions to NI will still be taken into account when deciding their pension award. That has always been the case and it will be the case on this.