State Pension Age (Women)

Gavin Robinson Excerpts

Thursday 7th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Richard Graham]

Hold on a moment—let me finish what I am saying.

Were the intention simply to change all the arrangements for women born in the 1950s and go back to the original proposal, that would, I believe—the Minister might want to put a more detailed figure on it—cost the taxpayer about £10 billion. Yesterday we had the shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith), calling for changes to universal credit that were not costed and for which he offered no alternative in terms of where the money would come from. Today we have a proposed transitional arrangement that might cost £10 billion, but its detail has not been spelled out, and neither has its exact cost or how it would be paid for.

I believe that it is incumbent on all of us as MPs partly to represent the emotional feelings of our constituents, as has been done very well by a number of Members today, but also to reflect on the reality, the cost and the implications of what is being proposed, which remains an open question.

[Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)]

rose—

[Richard Graham]

I am happy to take an intervention on that specific point.

[Gavin Robinson]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that we had a quest for equalisation in pensions that has resulted in an iniquitous outcome for the women we are discussing? Social justice demands that whatever the transitional arrangements should be—he makes a strong point about that—he and other members of the DWP Committee will work to find arrangements that would ease the iniquitous outcome of this equalisation.

[Richard Graham]

In fact, the Committee had that discussion and we heard evidence from Women Against State Pension Inequality, which is a good, reasonable and sensible campaign. On the whole, its evidence to the Committee focused on the issue of communication, partly so that lessons can be learned so that when future announcements are made about what will happen in 10 years’ time, they are communicated effectively to those who will be affected. We do not want to end up in a similar situation in 10 years’ time, with another generation of women complaining about not knowing.