State Pension Age: Women

Callum McCaig Excerpts

Wednesday 30th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Ian Blackford]

We are not talking about concessions; we are talking about these women’s pension entitlement. How dare the Government talk about concessions, when people have paid into their pension and deserve to get it!

This is not a comedy but the reality of a Government letting women down.

[Callum McCaig (Aberdeen South) (SNP)]

There are suggestions from Conservative Members that money does not grow on trees, and that is correct, but this money came from these women paying in through national insurance. It did not grow on trees; it came, hard-earned, from their own pockets.

[Ian Blackford]

My hon. Friend is quite correct. We keep hearing about fiscal responsibility and how we cannot afford it, but of course we can, because the surplus is there in the national insurance fund.

When the new Prime Minister took office, the first thing she did was bring a motion before the House asking us to renew the Trident missile system, and effectively every single Conservative Member went through the Lobby and gave the Government a blank cheque. They can invest in weapons of mass destruction but they are not prepared to give women pensioners their just deserts.