State Pension Age: Women

Luke Pollard Excerpts

Thursday 31st January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Tonia Antoniazzi]

This is a huge issue. Where do these people stand now? That is the problem. People are busy; they are working, looking after grandchildren and running around the place. We all know what I mean. My mum is currently rushing around after my 14-year-old. Life happens. When people get a response, how do they react to it? This is why the groups of women who support each other on social media are giving each other a shoulder to cry on and a listening ear. They are a force to be reckoned with and I thank them for their work.

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way; she is being very generous with her time. There are 8,500 WASPI women in Plymouth, but they are dying. Justice delayed is justice denied, and many WASPI women are dying in poverty before they get justice and the pension that they deserve. The fight must continue in order to give the people who are still alive justice, as well as all the women we have lost.

[Tonia Antoniazzi]

I thank my hon. Friend for that comment. I completely agree with him.

Can the Minister provide a rationale as to why the independent case examiner has closed these 2,505 cases, and say precisely why they were closed? Knowing this, the women would be able to work out which aspect of their case they could proceed with. Otherwise, how are they going to know what to do next? How many of these complaints could have been answered before 30 November, and why does it take so long to deal with them? Now they have just been filed somewhere, and that is simply not good enough.

I would like to raise my concerns about the recent written statement on the pension credit update of 14 January. Written statements are often seen in this House as a way to bury bad news, and these further changes to the pension credit rules appear to put strain on lower-paid women. Can the Minister confirm that the effect of this change will be to debar a pensioner of either gender from claiming pension credit until their partner also attains state pension age? This measure, if brought in on 15 May, will slash the income of couples affected who can claim pension credit in future by up to £7,000 a year, in the worst cases, compared with the current rules. It is also worth noting that many of those caught by this policy change are likely to be women born in the 1950s, who will have been hit by this double whammy and rightly feel especially aggrieved. I hope that the Minister can give further clarification on this point.

I want to give a personal angle. I am very proud of my constituents. A year ago, I held a meeting on this issue in Mumbles, with over 300 women attending. As I have mentioned, approximately 5,500 women in Gower have been impacted by the pension age changes. Since then, they have held a few meetings and set up the Pension Justice for Swansea Women group, which includes all the other local constituencies. I could talk all day about the cases of women across Swansea who have had their lives turned upside down. I know women whose projected state age pension had been part of their divorce settlement. Then, when the goalposts changed, they had to go and find work and be financially worse off. These are women who have had to find low-paid and unskilled work to make ends meet—and, as I have said, they were lucky to even find that job. I know many women who have caring responsibilities, including one who looks after her grandchildren so that they do not go into care and cannot find a job to fit in with school hours.