Transitional State Pension Arrangements for Women

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2016 Westminster Hall

[Helen Jones]

My hon. Friend is right. The system is riddled with inequalities.

Many women have received wrong information. One lady who contacted me wrote:

“I have a pension calculation from the DWP telling me that I retire at 60 and this would not be reviewed until 2020”—

someone obviously keeps her paperwork carefully. She went on to say:

“I have had no notification or correspondence from the DWP informing me of these changes and have…just found out by applying for a State pension forecast…To be told at the age of 58 that you will not get any pension until you are 66 does not give enough time to plan or budget”—

she is right.

Many women have been caught out by the changes in the number of years’ contributions to national insurance required before receiving a full pension. One lady said:

“I was made redundant after 30 years and I contacted the NI people to ask about my contribution record…I was told because I had paid a full 30 years I didn’t need to pay anymore”.

She then found out that she

“was no longer getting a full pension but approximately £35 a week less because guess what I haven’t paid enough NI contributions in the last 7 years! I WAS TOLD I DIDN’T NEED TO!”

In any private pension scheme, that would be called mis-selling, but we see the same from the Government.

Another lady highlighted the fact that many of this cohort of women took time out to look after their children or to act as carers, meaning that they did not build up enough occupational pension. In some cases, women were not allowed to join occupational pension schemes at all and some were working before the Equal Pay Act 1970 came into force. She said:

“I am also penalised here because when I did return to work after my children were older I did not accrue enough to have a reasonable work pension…It is totally demeaning that I have to rely once again on my husband who is 67 this year and worked from the age of 18.”

That is not equality.

Another lady, who is also a carer, said:

“I will be 62 next month and found out that I will not be getting my state pension until I am 65 and some months. I made Choices in my mid fifties and gave up work to look after my husband expecting to only wait 5 years or so to get my pension but it came as a shock to find out that I wasn’t”.

People have made decisions based on information they were given at the time in good faith, but they then found that decisions had been overturned.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. This is the second debate on this matter that we have in a few weeks, but the Government have not taken a blind bit of notice. I have also received correspondence outlining similar cases. In fact, we received more than 3,500 examples in Coventry. Is there not a danger that women will be in the same position as they were before the Equal Pay Act? Equal pay has still not been achieved in some industries, and women are also being affected in terms of their pensions.

[Helen Jones]

Many women are losing out on their pensions in all sorts of ways, not least because of the change in the retirement age. One woman who wrote to me has, like many of those I have heard from, worked all her life. She suddenly found out that rather than her retirement age being 62, it was going to be 65. She said:

“I am really annoyed with the Government’s lack of respect for those of us that have worked hard all our lives.”

The phrase “lack of respect” sums up the situation. There has been failure to give proper notification—sometimes there has been no notification—a failure to understand that many of the women affected were working in low-paid jobs all their lives, a failure to understand that women could not change their plans at short notice and that many of them would have to rely on their husband’s pension, and a total failure to see the impact of the legislation on those real people. Many of these people are now living in poverty or working for longer in low-paid jobs, while many were made redundant in their early 60s and cannot get other employment.