State Pension Changes: Women

Bob Seely Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2024 Westminster Hall

[Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

I shall be brief. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) who articulated many of our concerns.

There is a clear message that justice is on the side of the WASPI ladies. They are an uncomplaining group, but they have an overwhelmingly obvious case. They brought up families, often held down jobs and played a phenomenal role in many of our constituencies, including mine, through many different community groups and organisations such as the women’s institute. Not only was their rate of pay often not the same when they were in the workplace, but they now find a second injustice in the maladministration—probably—of their pensions.

We may not get a perfect situation, but my message for the Minister is very simple: if we find in the next few months, as I suspect we will, that the WASPI case is right and we need to act on it, and that the Government and the DWP have not behaved in the way they should have done, there is a simple remedy. I personally would love to see a May election, but if we go through to November, the likelihood is that there will be another financial statement this year from the Government. I beg the Government and urge the Minister to listen very closely to the voices here. If it is deemed to be the right thing to do, as it almost certainly will be, we have a chance—not only for reasons of politics but for reasons of ethics and doing the right thing, because we do not want another scandal on this issue as well as many others—for the Government to issue a recompense process of some kind in an autumn financial statement.

To sum up, justice is on the side of the WASPI women. We need to recognise that and act on it, and the sooner we do so, the better.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Maynard]

I will come on to the sequencing and the importance of the different stages shortly, but I am reminded that the Parliamentary Commissioner Act 1967 states that ombudsman investigations that are not complete

“shall be conducted in private”.

The ombudsman has made some information about the investigation public via its website. It published the final version of stage 1 of its report on the website in July 2021. The report said that

“these women should have had at least 28 months’ more individual notice of the changes than they got.”

These findings relate to a specific window of time between August 2005 and December 2007. The report also found that

“between 1995 and 2004, DWP’s communication of changes to State Pension age reflected the standards we would expect it to meet.”

I know that there is frustration among Members of this House and their constituents about how long the investigation has been ongoing, and about the fact that the ombudsman has yet to publish his final report. It is a complex investigation that spans over 30 years, as equalisation of the state pension age was enacted in 1995. The ombudsman provides an independent complaint handling service for complaints that have not been resolved by UK Government Departments and the NHS in England. The ombudsman is managing the investigation in stages, and publication of the final report is entirely a matter for the ombudsman.

[Bob Seely]

I totally understand what the Minister is saying about the timing of the report. Can he give Members of Parliament any rough indication as to when that report will land and when it will be published?

[Paul Maynard]

As I think I have already said, the timing of the report is a matter for the ombudsman to determine. I have received no indication from the ombudsman of the timescale to which he is working, much as we would all like to know the date when it is coming.

The Department for Work and Pensions has to be mindful of its independence, but we are co-operating fully with the investigation. We believe that it is important to let the independent process conclude, so that we can then carefully consider the findings and the recommendations that may arise from the final report.