Oral Answers to Questions

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Monday 14th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justin Tomlinson]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising this issue. We are doing extensive work in this area, recognising the combined spending power of £212 billion for those with disabilities. We are doing particular work with my colleagues in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to make cultural and music venues accessible. Attitude is Everything is a fantastic charity. A task group is looking with leading operators at restaurants, and good progress has been made with sports facilities, particularly with the premier league.

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

T6. The Minister dismisses the six suggestions of my hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State for transitional arrangements as somehow mathematically challenged—or perhaps it was challenging. This issue is about fairness, however, and about establishing a fair transitional arrangement for the WASPI women. Has the Minister actually costed any of the six suggestions, or has he just dismissed them all out of hand?

[Mr Vara]

Yes, we have costed them, and a response to a freedom of information request is coming out today. When the hon. Lady talks about fairness and says that there should be transitional arrangements, I simply ask her to look back at Hansard for the year 2011, where she will find that on Second Reading, the then Secretary of State who is the current Secretary of State said that he would go away and consider—and he did. Four months later, transitional arrangements were implemented. They cost £1.1 billion and a reduction was made to the period from two years to 18 months, so transitional arrangements have been put in place.