Transitional State Pension Arrangements for Women

Justin Madders Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2016 Westminster Hall

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson, particularly as you appear to be saving the best till last on this occasion.

I would like to start, as many other hon. Members have done, by paying tribute to the members of the WASPI campaign. Like others who have spoken, I have been contacted by many constituents who are deeply concerned about the profound implications of these changes, which they say that they were not informed about. Many have told me how they have been individually affected, so I would like to draw the Minister’s attention to a couple of examples, as they illustrate far more eloquently than I can the injustice that has been created.

One constituent tells me:

“By the time I reach 66, my savings will have run out and the comfortable retired life I had planned and saved for, over 40 years, will have disappeared”.

Another says:

“I am struggling daily with trying to work three days a week as I am now disabled. I suffer from anxiety and depression and every day is really hard for me. I cannot impress on you strongly enough how hard life is for me.”

I would also like to take a little time to talk about Jane, a constituent whose experience encapsulates very well the injustice that many people feel. She says:

“I left school at 15 and worked in a variety of jobs, taking time out to raise a family of three children. My last job was as a Healthcare Assistant”.

She explains that she became too ill to carry on working, so she took ill-health retirement. She continues:

“The final calculations were made, and my pension was worked out”

based on

“retirement at 60 (I was 53 at the time). I received a lump sum and a small monthly pension of just over £250. It wasn’t a lot but I was also entitled to Incapacity Benefit and I knew I would have my State Pension which would be a big help.

Things began to change a couple of years later when I was…placed on work related ESA. It didn’t take long before that became means tested…It’s now a heat or eat situation for many. Some women are suicidal and some have had to sell their homes. Can you imagine how it feels for a 60 year old woman, frightened and in ill health, to be made to sign on and go on workfare? This isn’t equality, it’s injustice.”

Both Jane and her employer made the irreversible decision that she would take ill-health retirement, with the expectation that she would receive the state pension at 60. It is worth emphasising that Jane’s employer was the national health service—part of the state—but it did not seem to know about the changes to the state pension age either. It is hardly surprising that if parts of government did not know about the changes, many women did not either. The indignity that Jane has suffered as a result of welfare reform says an awful lot about how our society treats older women. She has already been granted ill-health retirement, but is now consistently challenged about her condition. Her years of service seem to count for nothing.

Women who have planned and saved for their retirement are living on dwindling, limited savings until they reach their new state pension age, when the only income that they will have will be their state pension. Do the Government really want to send people the message, “Yes, we want you to save for your retirement and to take responsibility for your old age, but beware—we might just move the goalposts and we probably will not even tell you about it”?

We have heard plenty of quotes from Baroness Altmann today. Unfortunately, I do not have time to add my personal favourite, but I will comment that we have seen a remarkable transformation in just a few months from her defending the rights of women to defending the indefensible. There can be no doubt now that the Government are aware of the issues, as this is the third debate that we have had in Parliament in just a couple of months, so will this be third time lucky? Are the Government finally prepared to listen? Will there be an acknowledgement that what has happened is an injustice that is indefensible? Nobody buys it when Ministers say time and again that nothing can be done. The Government’s U-turn on tax credits has shown that when they get it wrong, they can change course. I do not accept that nothing can be done, and the women who have talked to us in this campaign do not accept that nothing can be done—be in no doubt, they will not give up until something is done.