Women’s State Pension Age: Ombudsman Report

John Hayes Excerpts

Thursday 16th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for giving us the opportunity for this debate, and I thank the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) for opening it. I should make it clear at the outset that I was the Minister for Pensions between December 1998 and July 1999, and again between May 2005 and May 2006, which is part of the period covered by the ombudsman’s report.

I draw the House’s attention to the evidence that my Committee, the Work and Pensions Committee, took on 7 May on the ombudsman’s report—we are grateful to all who gave evidence to us that morning—and to the letter that I sent to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions yesterday on behalf of the Committee, setting out our suggestions for a way forward. Those documents have been tagged for this debate.

The ombudsman opened an investigation of all this in 2018, six years ago. After receiving more than 600 cases, it stopped accepting new ones and selected six sample cases to investigate, one or two of which have been referred to today. The investigation was split into stages. The first report, published in July 2021, found maladministration in the way in which the DWP had communicated the changes to affected women. A further report, published in March this year, concluded that this had meant that

“some women had lost opportunities to make informed decisions about their finances”,

which had

“diminished their sense of personal autonomy and financial control”

and

“caused unnecessary stress and anxiety”

and

“unnecessary confusion”.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

Let me say at the outset that the right hon. Gentleman was a distinguished Minister, well respected across the House in his various Government jobs. Is communication not the nub of this? Of course the decision itself is a matter for a debate on pension entitlement, but there is the entirely separate issue of how the decision was communicated, and the injustice lies in that failure to communicate. When we change people’s circumstances with notice and they have time to deal with it, cope with it, make alternative arrangements, that is one thing; but when we do not give them adequate notice because of their age, that is quite another. Disraeli, I think, said “Justice is truth in action”, and that is the truth of the matter.

[Sir Stephen Timms]

The right hon. Gentleman has echoed a number of the points that the ombudsman has drawn to our attention, but I think we should be clear about the fact that a great many people did know about this change. The passage of the legislation was widely reported at the time, nearly 30 years ago, and I vividly recall that in the first of my two stints as Pensions Minister, I spent a fair chunk of most days signing replies to MPs who had written on behalf of constituents who were unhappy about the impending change, or were calling on the then fairly new Government to reverse it. The replies that I signed were robust, and made it clear that the decision would not be reversed. The decision was quite well known, and—the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) made a useful point in this regard—I think that citizens have a responsibility to keep themselves informed, by listening to the radio or reading the papers, of changes in the law that will affect them.

However, the ombudsman has established and made clear in the report that the Department found out, at around the second time I was Pensions Minister, that only 40% of women had known about the forthcoming pension age change. Forty per cent. is a large number, but 60% —the proportion who did not know about it—is even larger. The Department found that out as a result of research done in 2003-04, but did nothing about it until 2009. That is the maladministration that the ombudsman has identified. We do not know why nothing was done—well, I certainly do not—because the ombudsman has not told us, but it cannot be credibly argued that this was not maladministration. When a Department discovers information and then does nothing, there is clearly a problem.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) on securing the debate and the Backbench Business Committee on granting it. The purpose of the debate is to consider the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman’s report of 21 March and how best to implement its recommendations.

In brief, the following issues arise from the report. First, the PHSO found that in 2005, the Department for Work and Pensions,

“failed to take adequate account of the need for targeted and individually tailored information”

to be shared with women affected by the changes to the state pension age. That amounted to maladministration and resulted in the six complainants whose cases were considered not being able to do things differently or make informed, mitigating decisions. The PHSO concluded that they should be compensated for that.

Secondly, the PHSO took the highly unusual step of laying its report before Parliament, due to its concerns that the DWP would fail to provide a remedy. Although the PHSO has put forward a suggestion as to what the compensation should be, it has asked Parliament to intervene to agree a mechanism for remedy and to hold the Government to account.

Thirdly, the PHSO points out that it is “extremely rare” for an organisation that it investigates not to accept and act on its recommendations. It makes the observation that a failure to comply with its recommendations represents a constitutional gap in protecting the rights of citizens who have been failed by a public body and in ensuring access to justice.

My interest in the injustice arises from the fact that, for approximately eight years, as regular as clockwork, constituents have been highlighting to me the enormous challenges and hardship that they have faced and endured. For the past four years, I have had the privilege of co-chairing the all-party parliamentary group on state pension inequality for women with, first, the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) and, more recently, the hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey). I take the opportunity to thank our predecessors, the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) and my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton).

It is important to thank the PHSO for its work and the duty that it has carried out. It has received criticism for the time that it has taken and for the narrow remit of considering six cases that some are concerned do not fully reflect the injustice that 1950s-born women as a whole have had to endure. However, it would have been very easy for the PHSO to have decided that this was not a case for it to investigate. Instead, it has not shied away from the past. The investigation has taken a long time because it is complicated and there was a need to get it right.

The PHSO has provided us with a snapshot. It is up to us—Parliament, Government and the DWP—to extrapolate and put right a problem that may well extend much more widely. To do that, the PHSO has provided some guidelines that we need to follow. Parliament should take immediate steps to find a resolution for those who do not have time on their side. Each case should be considered on its own merits. Finite resources are not an excuse for failing to provide a fair remedy. If Parliament chooses to do nothing, that will undermine the ombudsman. The Department for Work and Pensions should respect what Parliament recommends. There must be a commitment from Government to take on board the PHSO’s findings and to work collegiately with Parliament in finding and then implementing a fair and just remedy.

A wider issue that needs to be considered, perhaps in the first instance by the right hon. Member for East Ham and his Committee, is the breakdown in communication and implementation of policy in the DWP, going back over 30 years. I accept that the Department’s remit is large, challenging and complicated, but the PHSO highlights repeated failures in the Department’s communication of state pension reforms.

[Sir John Hayes]

We must not let cause become more important that effect. As my hon. Friend described, it is right that we look at why and how this happened, but what really matters is what happened, because what the WASPI women need is action quickly. If we were to spend a great deal of time looking at the genesis of the issue, I am not sure that quick action would be delivered, so I endorse what the right hon. Member for East Ham said about establishing criteria that can be effected with reasonable speed.

[Peter Aldous]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that point, which he makes quite well. I am diverting slightly from the main cause and theme, but I think he and I are on the same page.

As I said, I am concerned about repeated failures in the Department’s communications. Only last Saturday, a constituent highlighted to me how the introduction of the new state pension penalises those women born in 1951 and 1952. The End Frozen Pensions campaign points out that 85% of frozen pensioners did not know of the policy’s existence prior to moving abroad.