Oral Answers to Questions

Lee Dillon Excerpts

Monday 26th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Dame Diana Johnson]

As I just set out to the hon. Member for Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe (David Chadwick), there have been some problems with Access to Work, but it is this Government who are dealing with them. We have already put in resources, with a particular focus on individuals who are moving into work to make sure they get access to whatever support they need. Again, I am very happy to provide further details of what additional support we have put in, but it is this Government who are actually dealing with these problems and ensuring that people with disabilities and long-term health conditions have what they need to support them into work and to keep them in work.

[Mr Lee Dillon (Newbury) (LD)]

5. What recent assessment he has made of the potential merits of compensating 1950s-born women affected by the maladministration of state pension age changes.

[Sarah Dyke (Glastonbury and Somerton) (LD)]

6. What recent assessment he has made of the potential merits of compensating 1950s-born women affected by the maladministration of state pension age changes.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Torsten Bell)]

As the Secretary of State set out on 11 November 2025, we are retaking the decision made in December 2024 as it relates to the communications on state pension age. We will update the House on the decision as soon as a conclusion is reached.

[Mr Dillon]

I was one of 100 MPs who signed a cross-party letter calling on the Government to take action for WASPI women. Such is the strength of feeling in my constituency that I am regularly contacted about this issue. In the Government’s determination, are they planning to consult with the Women Against State Pension Inequality Campaign, especially if they are minded to deny 1950s-born women their lived experience again?

[Torsten Bell]

I know that hon. Members across the House will have been contacted by constituents who have been affected, and many of us will also have family members who have been affected. As I said, we will update the House as soon as a conclusion is reached. We have committed in public to doing so within three months of the decision in December, which means a decision will be reported to the House before the beginning of March.

I gently say that we need to be clear about what is at stake here: this decision relates narrowly to the question of the communication of the state pension age changes. For many women, including many of my constituents, the issue they are actually most focused on is the increase, and the acceleration in the increase, in the state pension age that was put in place by the coalition Government, which not a single Lib Dem MP voted against back in 2011. I think we should be clear about that, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will be clear on that with his constituents when they raise the matter with him.