Ged Killen
Main Page: Ged Killen (Labour (Co-op) - Rutherglen and Hamilton West)Department Debates - View all Ged Killen's debates with the Department for Work and Pensions
State Pension Age
Ged Killen Excerpts(7 years, 1 month ago)
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Gerard Killen (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank my hon. Friend for being generous in taking interventions. I speak to many of my constituents about that unfairness in the state pension age increases. Does my hon. Friend agree that what compounds the unfairness is that many of those women, when they were in work, did highly physically demanding, low-paid work and they had to fight just to be paid equally for that work?
Hugh Gaffney
Yes, I do. For your sake, Mr Hollobone, I point out that I will not take any more interventions and will finish my speech, but I thank my hon. Friend for making that point.
My hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) has applied to the Backbench Business Committee for a debate on the WASPI women. I am a sponsor of that request, along with my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Laura Pidcock) and hon. Members in other parties. I very much hope for a full debate on the issues and a vote on the Floor of the House. I believe that comments on the WASPI issue are best made in a debate such as that, but I will say a couple of words here.
First, the lack of communication from the Government to the women affected was crazy. The Cridland review recommended that the Government wrote directly and in time to the women affected by changes to the state pension age. Secondly, things do not have to be this way; we should not have citizens of our country paying a price because of their date of birth.