BMA (Contract Negotiations)
Debate between Helen Jones and Philippa Whitford(8 years, 8 months ago)
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Ben Gummer
I will happily arrange for the hon. Lady to have a clinical explanation of the various studies that she has cited, because I think she will then understand why the part that she has quoted needs to be understood in context—[Interruption.] I am asking her a direct question: does she—and do other hon. Members, who are tittering about this on the Opposition Benches—really propose that there is no weekend effect? If they are saying that is the case, or if they are saying that there are 500 or 1,000 deaths and that somehow is acceptable and the Secretary of State should not address himself to it, that is a worrying statement of intent.
Transitional State Pension Arrangements for Women
Debate between Helen Jones and Philippa Whitford(8 years, 9 months ago)
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Helen Jones
I absolutely agree with my right hon. Friend, and I will come to that point later.
As I said, the problem was recognised by many people at the time of the 2011 Act. My hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Teresa Pearce), who has a great deal of expertise in this area, moved amendments that would have protected women born between October 1953 and April 1955 from waiting more than an extra year for their state pension.
Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)
Is it not also the case, as several of my constituents have said, that these changes compounded measures in the 1995 Act of which women were not informed? One lady said that until she got a letter saying, “You are no longer retiring at 64, but at 66,” she knew nothing about the fact that there had been a change, so for her the difference is six years.
Helen Jones
The hon. Lady is absolutely right. Again, I will come on to that point a bit later.
Part of the problem in 2011 was that the Government did not seem to understand the implications of their own Bill. When the former Pensions Minister gave an interview to the Institute for Government after the 2015 election, he said, somewhat ungrammatically, I think, but fairly clearly:
“We made a choice, and the implications of what we were doing suddenly, about two or three months later, it became clear that they were very different from what we thought.”
I have known a few Ministers in my time who did not seem to understand the implications of their own Bills, but this was a former Pensions Minister—an acknowledged expert on social security—who did not understand what was going to happen. If he did not understand the position, how on earth could he expect the many thousands of affected women to understand it?