State Pension: Working-class Women
Debate between Chi Onwurah and Ian Blackford(7 years, 3 months ago)
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Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)
The hon. Lady is giving a graphic account of the difficulties that Mrs Tenniswood and many other women have faced. Mrs Tenniswood has paid national insurance contributions for 42 years. Is it not the case that somebody in her situation was doing that under the impression that that was a contract with the Government—an entitlement to a pension? The hon. Lady has described how Mrs Tenniswood has had to write and ask for her pension statement, but the Government should have communicated with Mrs Tenniswood. That failure of communication has not allowed people the time to properly prepare, which is the real damage caused by the changes.
Chi Onwurah
The hon. Gentleman is quite right—there is a sense of a broken contract between the state and hard-working citizens. The failure to give adequate notice means that the changes could not have been planned for. The consequences of many life decisions that WASPI women have taken are now that they face many years of reduced income that they could not have anticipated.
Mrs Tenniswood’s experience is far from unique. One woman told me that she has a neck injury and spondylitis —two debilitating diseases that would exclude her from many jobs. She said:
“I do not want to be forced to work until I drop.”
Why should she be? Another woman told me that she had recently been diagnosed with osteophytic lipping in her hips. She said:
“I am not so mobile as I once was. I cannot possibly carry on getting in and out of a car with the chemist’s deliveries—”
that is her job—
“30 to 50 times a day.”