State Pension Age for Women

Jo Swinson Excerpts

Wednesday 5th July 2017 Westminster Hall

[Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I had a very long speech—but that will now become a very short speech.

I want to make one particular point. I was a personal finance journalist, writing about pensions, for about 15 years; also, my mother is one of those affected by the changes. She was informed about them, but she found out relatively late, and I have many constituents in the same position.

I accept and genuinely believe that over the past 13 years—remember, the Labour Government saw through the majority of this—Governments have fallen down on the job of informing people directly, as they should have done. There was some discussion in the personal finance press—I know that because I used to write about it—but now Labour are coming along and saying, “Everything is terrible under the Conservatives”, or whatever. They were in charge for 13 years during the period in question.

[Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Julian Knight]

I will not give way, I am afraid, as I am short of time.

My other point is that the current state pension arrangements will have to rise as well. When we meet those issues in the future, we have to get them right because this country is heading for an enormous black hole. The figures are frightening—absolutely frightening. People talk about £30 billion here, £30 billion there, but the reality is that if the Opposition parties want to form a Government in the future, they will have to accept that the pension system in this country needs continued radical reform. If they do not do so, and continue grandstanding, taking on policies and ignoring their own past errors, that is not going to do any good whatever.

In 2003, the Turner commission report—

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Guy Opperman)]

We are from different sides of the political fence, but the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) and I are united by one key thing: we have both beaten cancer. I would like to start by saying how pleased I am to see my fellow tumour survivor back in his place. I wish him well with his future treatment. He can imagine my joy when, on day three of my new job as Minister for Pensions and Financial Inclusion, I was told that he had secured a debate on women’s state pensions—the first debate I would have to answer here in this House.

[Jo Swinson]

Will the Minister give way?

[Guy Opperman]

Not yet, no—I am not going to. All of us here, as constituency MPs, have met women who have been affected by the state pension age rises. I have met them ever since my election as Member of Parliament for Hexham in 2010, and during the passage of the 2011 Act. Whether they are affiliated to the WASPI campaign or not, I have seen them in and out of my surgeries, like all colleagues have done. Like many, I have answered correspondence on the issue. I make it clear that I will be delighted to meet the all-party parliamentary group when it is re-formed, as I am sure it will be, and will be in a position to sit down with them to discuss their ongoing situations.

The hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mhairi Black) said that she expected me to speak only about the 1995 Act, the 2011 Act, all the transitional arrangements and so on. I accept, and she will understand, that I have to make the case on those matters, not least because of what has been said, but I want this debate to be done in a different way. I want to say two things at the outset.

If individual Members of Parliament have specific cases where they feel their individual constituents are affected by state pension age changes and find themselves in financial hardship, whether they are people who have to reduce their hours because of sickness, disability or caring responsibility, I and the London DWP team will look into those individual cases. As Members pass them on to us, we will do what we can to provide assistance, whether that is understanding of the availability of carer’s allowance, housing benefit, tax credits, income support, employment and support allowance or other benefits. However, the essence of what I want to address the House on is this.