Transitional State Pension Arrangements for Women

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2016 Westminster Hall

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson. I am grateful to the Petitions Committee and all those who signed the petition for bringing about the debate. I know that my constituents would want me to pass on their thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) for her excellent opening speech and ensuring that we have the debate.

I want briefly to tell the story of one of my constituents who, despite the protestations from the Government Members, tells me she was never informed in 1995 that her state pension age was changing from 60 to 65. From her own reading and information picked up from various sources—I do not know whether that includes the Financial Times—she was led to believe that she would receive her state pension at 62. She told me that although she was unhappy with a two-year deferment of her state pension, she was fit and healthy at the time and did not understand the magnitude of the changes. Her view is that we lived in a different world at that time, and she said:

“The welfare state had not been mauled…There were safety nets to assist the poor and the sick that have now been removed.”

Like a lot of working-class, low-waged people at that time, she was depending on her state pension as her main source of income at retirement, although she hoped to be able to save a little bit of money to supplement that. As time progressed, she unfortunately began to suffer with serious health issues and was forced to give up work. She was born in 1957 and is doubly unhappy that she now has to wait until she is 66 to receive her state pension. She has little in the way of private pension provision and is forced to live on minimal income, while suffering from ill health, with the prospect of having to wait until 2023—seven more years—before she qualifies for her state pension.

[Dr Philippa Whitford]

Given increasing multi-morbid health conditions, there will be women in the 60 to 66 age group with ill health who are suffering due to the cut in support and are then put in the employment and support allowance work-related activity group with absolutely no chance of getting a job or decent support.

[Liz McInnes]

The hon. Lady is, of course, absolutely right. Several Members have mentioned the lack of support that is available to women born in the ’50s who find themselves in that situation.

Many women have visited my surgeries, such as Barbara, who was born in 1955. She said to me:

“Women born in the 1950s were more likely to give up work when bringing up their children because there was no provision for maternity leave. They are unlikely to have had the option to develop their own personal occupational pension to the same level, even if they have one. It also remains to be seen whether the majority of women affected will be able to remain in paid employment into their mid to late 60s to lessen these effects.”

I also met Lorraine, who worked in education but, because she worked part time, was not even allowed to join the occupational pension scheme. She is now 59 and has had to give up work completely to care for five elderly relatives. She also does respite fostering. This woman does so much for society and ultimately saves the Government money by caring for all these people, yet her reward is to wait until she is 66 before she qualifies for her state pension.

Jackie introduced herself to me as “June ’54 and furious!”—she allowed me to quote her on that. She pointed out that raising the state pension also denies entitlement to concessionary travel and heating allowances. She started work in 1971, when the pension age was 60, but had to take early retirement from the police service to look after an elderly relative. She will not get her state pension until she is 66. She tells me—I believe her—that she did not receive any letters informing her of that.

The Government try to justify the increase in pension age by stating that life expectancy is increasing, yet there is a real north-south divide regarding life expectancy, as several hon. Members have said. Women born in the 1950s deserve to be treated fairly. Many of them worked part time and brought up families. Many were denied access to private and workplace pensions, so the state pension was key to their financial plans for retirement. I call on the Government to reconsider the unequal treatment of women born in the’50s, to consider the inadequate notice that those women were given of the increase in the state pension age and to revisit the transitional arrangements made for them.