Women’s Changed State Pension Age: Compensation

Debate between Edward Leigh and Jon Trickett

Monday 17th March 2025 Westminster Hall

[Jon Trickett (Normanton and Hemsworth) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your guidance, Sir Edward. I thank the Petitions Committee for arranging the debate, and I pay tribute to the hon. Member for South Cotswolds (Dr Savage) for her powerful opening speech. While I am in the business of thanking people, let me thank the tens of thousands of WASPI women who I have met around the country over the years, fighting for what they see to be justice. I agree with them. That organisation will not simply disappear, and the Government cannot simply ignore it—they will not be allowed to. The WASPI women have many friends and allies in this place on both sides of the House who will work with them to try to secure justice.

When I voted for the reimbursement of the WASPI women the other day, I did so with two thoughts in my mind. The first was that there is something going wrong with the way we govern our country. Our governing class has lost touch with the people in general. It is very important that we begin to think hard about why that has happened and what we do about it. The first step must be that politicians say what they mean and mean what they say. I told the WASPI women in my constituency, and everywhere else I have met them, that I would back them until they get justice. I will continue to do so.

Beyond individual politicians, the structures of our politics are no longer working properly. The ombudsman was set up especially to allow citizens who feel an injustice to go to an organisation separate from the state to pursue justice. How can that organisation, which is there to give voice to people, be ignored by a Government of whichever side? This debate should not be about finger pointing between the parties, but let us be clear that previous Governments introduced these measures and failed to implement the ombudsman’s report, so it is a problem for the whole House.

After thinking about changing our politics, my second thought was about social justice. It is not fair that women were told at the last possible moment, with the state sitting on a report for 28 months, that their financial arrangements would change. I had a look at what happened in Spain: the Government increased the retirement age to 67, but they did it over 14 years. That allowed people to make their own financial plans about their circumstances. Each person knew what was coming in due course. The British state, of course, because of the gap between the public and the governing class, failed to do such a thing.

Let me give one constituency case of a woman who came to see me. She was 58, had worked all her life and had saved a small amount of money, working hard and not earning very much. Her mum and dad were seriously ill, but she had enough money saved to get through to being 60, so she retired and went to look after them, only to discover to her horror that she would have to wait for years for the pension to come in. The money she had saved was not sufficient. Next, sadly, her mum and dad died, and she was left with no support or income of any kind—no carer’s allowance, nothing. She was left in total poverty, as a result of the state’s failure to say what would happen to her in her life.

The state cannot be allowed to make decisions that transform people’s lives in such a way through no fault of their own—people who have worked and paid tax all their life. Millions of women have suffered in their own individual way, and all of us will have heard lots of stories about that. There are 6,170 WASPI women in my constituency alone; my majority is 6,600. Members can work that out for themselves—look at the numbers. Each one of those women will have family members who feel a burning sense of injustice too. But it should not be about us and saving our seats; it should be about what is right, about justice and about a different kind of politics entirely.

It seems to me that options were available, but the then Government ignored them. There could have been a proper transition. Now we have an ombudsman’s report that has made clear recommendations and that imposes an obligation on us—every Member of this House—to implement them. We must do that. Let me make one final point—

[Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

Order. There is a five-minute limit—sorry, Jon.

New Wealth Taxes

Debate between Edward Leigh and Jon Trickett

Tuesday 14th June 2022 Westminster Hall

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) on securing this important debate.

I will not reproduce figures already mentioned, but there has been an explosion of wealth, certainly since the banking crash, and before that, alongside a growth in poverty. The two things are interconnected, because the growth in wealth is a function of the increase in poverty. It reminds me of Victor Hugo’s statement:

“The paradise of the rich is made out of the hell of the poor.”

That is the truth of the matter, but it is not simply about poverty. It is also about remuneration for middle and upper-income earners as well as lower-income earners. The truth is that there is a long-term secular decline in the proportion of GDP that goes into wages and salaries. That is the central problem with which we need to wrestle, if we intend to tackle the fiscal crisis that state services are now facing. There are four sources of tax. There is income tax, which is more or less half of all tax raised. There is tax on consumption, which is VAT. There is tax on household property, the council tax. There is tax on capital. The tax on capital is one twelfth of the amount raised from income taxes, and is imbalanced as a consequence.

It is even worse than that. If the amount of money going into the salaries and wages of the 33 million working people in our country is correct—it is, because a graph shows it clearly—the capacity of income tax, which is the largest amount of tax we raise, will be limited and in long-term secular decline. We must do something about that, if we want to continue with public services and tackle inequality. Where is the money going to come from? I do not think for one second that we want to increase VAT in any event, but particularly given the cost of living crisis. Nor do I propose an increase in council tax.

Income tax is in long-term decline for the reasons I have given. Therefore, there is only one other place to go, which is to tax wealth. Two of my hon. Friends talked of a one-off tax on wealth. I am not convinced that that is the right way to do it. First, a very large amount of money, a proportion of individual wealth, would have to be raised on a one-off basis to make a significant contribution. In any event, there is a long-term fiscal crisis, for the reasons I have described. Therefore, we need a regular tax on capital.

I have a further point to make on that, and it has already been made. For some reason, we tax income from work much more than income from wealth. That is wrong, imbalanced, asymmetric and should end. There is scope to do that. I published a paper about a year ago, which is now in the Library, about wealth and a wealth tax. We looked at several different ways of taxing wealth, and there are many. We worked out the median of a reasonably balanced wealth tax, taking account of behavioural changes, because wealthy people will change how they behave. We thought we could raise about £100 billion a year. The document is in the Library for people to look at. That is the central argument that needs to be made. Of course, there is an ethical argument about whether one human can be worth millions of pounds more than another. There is also an argument about inequality, tackling poverty and all those issues, but the central question is how to deal with the long-term fiscal crisis.

I will make one final point before I sit down. The Conservative party will not resolve this. Why do I say that? Tory donors who are among the top 250 richest people in our country have donated to that party £57 million. We all know that whoever pays the piper calls the tune. The Tories are not going to resolve the problem; they are part of the issue. There has to be a debate about these long-term problems, and a wealth tax is part of the solution.

[Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

Dead on five minutes. Well done. I call Jim Shannon.