Pensions Bill [Lords]
Debate between Julie Elliott and Jonathan Evans(13 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Jonathan Evans
Hon. Members on both sides of the House will have received similar letters. The Labour party’s policy, as far as I understand it, is to begin the process in 2020. Therefore, those people would write similar letters—would they not?—if the policy adopted by the hon. Lady were pursued.
Julie Elliott
That is absolutely right. The Labour party set out a similar policy of raising the pension age, but we would have done it by 2020, which would have allowed a considerable time for people to plan and to take that into account. The problem with the Government’s proposal is not raising the pensionable age, but doing so in such a short period. That is radically different from anything the Labour party proposed.
The coalition agreement said that the state pension age would not rise sooner than 2016 for men and 2020 for women. The Bill breaks that coalition commitment. My constituents feel very angry and misled about that. Like many of the coalition’s ill-conceived policies, this is too much, too fast.