State Pension: Women born in the 1950s

Bob Seely Excerpts

Thursday 22nd November 2018 Westminster Hall

[Patricia Gibson]

I suspect that the Minister knows fine well the life expectancy in Glasgow East and various parts of the UK, but it might make uncomfortable reading when trying to impose a one-size-fits-all policy and stealing people’s pensions. Many of the women in my hon. Friend’s constituency, and indeed in my own, will die before they are of age to collect.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has pointed out that more than one in five women—21.2%—in the group affected by the recent increases in the state pension age were in poverty, which is up 6.4% on the situation pre-reform. Meanwhile, analysis by the Centre for Longitudinal Studies found that the poorest pensioners are the least able to work into their later years. It concluded that both men and women who had been poor during their working lives were the most likely to leave the job market between the ages of 50 and 55, with poor health being the key driver.

With striking inequalities in life expectancy and health expectancy, there are great worries that the policy hits hardest the poorest and most vulnerable. That has been borne out by analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies that shows that a third of single women aged between 60 and 63 were in poverty after housing costs—up 13.5% since before the reforms. Similarly, nearly four out of 10 people who rent their homes are in poverty—up from around a quarter. The IFS also found that 1.1 million women had seen their individual incomes fall by an average of £50 a week. Increased income from earnings is simply not enough to offset the loss of pensions. TUC analysis shows that half a million workers who are within five years of state pension age have had to leave the workplace for medical reasons, and that those who have worked in the lowest-paid jobs are twice as likely as managers and professionals to stop working before retirement age, owing to sickness and disability.

In the absence of labour market reforms, it is hard to see how raising the state pension age will allow this group to continue working. Rather, it will mean greater reliance on working-age benefits, which the Government say they wish to avoid. That makes it even more indefensible—this point is key and I hope the Minister is listening, because I would really like him to address it in his reply—that the Government decided to implement the Cridland review’s recommendation to accelerate the rise in pension age to 68, but chose to ignore the welfare reforms that John Cridland said would be essential to cushion the impact of those changes. Will the Minister tell us why? The Government cannot just pick the bits they like; they should implement the whole review or none of it.

The Government have not listened, but that does not mean that these women are not suffering. Many of them have been left destitute. The Government may think that because they are ordinary women—organised, persistent and dignified as they are—they are easier to ignore than rich and powerful men, but the reality does not bear that out. These women have been robbed, betrayed, misrepresented and mistreated, and they will not go away. I repeat a question that I have asked the Government many times: where on earth do they expect these women to go?

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

The 10,000 or so WASPI women in my constituency are certainly not natural protesters who wave a placard at the first opportunity. In fact, they have played a very positive role in our communities throughout the years. They are to be found in the women’s institute, making jam, and in many other voluntary groups. It is deeply disappointing that any Government should treat them in such a disrespectful way. Considering that the Chancellor announced more money in the recent Budget, it would have been nice if that Budget had given the WASPI women some recognition.

[Patricia Gibson]

I agree with everything the hon. Gentleman says. One of the most frustrating things that WASPI women have found in their quest for justice is not that they are not getting what they are asking for—bad as that is—but the wall of silence with which they have been met. It is as though they do not exist. That is not acceptable.

--- Later in debate ---

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. I thank the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) for securing this debate. I want to make a few brief points. Many of them have been made already, but they are worth making again, especially since we have the Minister here.

[Joan Ryan in the Chair]

I have a very active WASPI group on the Isle of Wight, which is led by Yvonne Yelland and others. I pay tribute to the work she has done with her WASPI team. I hear many of the same concerns about financial loss and hardship. It seems to me, as I said earlier, that these people are not naturally given to protesting or being dissenting voices in our society. For decades they have brought up families, in many cases been part of traditional husband and wife structures, and played their parts in their communities very well. For us to ignore these ladies and their plight, in effect because we think they will not dissent, go out on the streets or cause problems, is fundamentally to disrespect them and their contributions to public life.

I am partly motivated by a sense of fairness. These women went into the workforce in a very different era. They did not have any hope of equal pay, which we have more or less achieved in this day and age. Not only did they work generally for less pay than their menfolk and male counterparts, but they now find the modest pensions they had hoped to gain have been pushed back—more than once. They have faced not only pay inequality but unfairness over pensions.

As I said, the WASPI women in my patch have played a strong and active role in our society. Their quiet poverty concerns me. Many of them, their menfolk having also retired, are effectively dependent on one pension. Yvonne and other people from my WASPI group have talked to me about the effect of that on their quality of life. They have to make iniquitous and wretched choices—they are not able to go away or visit their grandchildren, and they perhaps have to think carefully about how they heat their homes in winter.

I do not think we will get anything like a perfect settlement—these women have already been negatively affected by not being able to get the pension they are entitled to—but I strongly support the report of the all-party parliamentary group on state pension inequality for women. I know the Government have to keep an eye on the purse strings, but I have difficulty understanding why some kind of gender assessment cannot be published. I do not see why we cannot have some kind of open, official forum for the WASPI women or their representatives to come and tell their stories about how the changes have affected them.

For me, this is a question of natural justice. Although we are unlikely, for better or worse, to be able to afford to do everything the WASPI women want—I realise we have to balance the books—I hope very much that, now we are moving on in some way from austerity, the Government can move to some kind of transitional arrangement to recognise some of the hardship. They should do that not only through one-off payments but in a structured way that recognises the injustice and that something can and should be done. I know such vague words occasionally come back to haunt politicians, but something can be done to rectify this situation. We need some kind of transitional agreement that respects the WASPI women’s plight and, while respecting the financial position we are in, recompenses them, because I believe their cause absolutely to be a just one.