Pensions Bill [Lords]

Lyn Brown Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Gregg McClymont]

In the event that a modification in the timetable is necessary, and in answer to the questions about where the savings would come from, it may well be that the Government would do better to speed up the timetable for a state pension age of 67 and 68. That is something that we would consider. It is a much more sensible option than this disproportionate, unfair and unjust hit on women aged 57 and 58, of whom there are 500,000.

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend’s point is well made. The Government’s position seems to be based on an assumption that women work for pin money. There is no understanding that women take time out for child care, that their pension pots are much smaller than those of men, and that these changes will create genuine hardship for the women on whom they impact.

[Gregg McClymont]

My hon. Friend is right. She represents a constituency where many women will be affected, particularly low-paid women. The proposed change has a socio-economic dimension of which I am sure the Minister is aware.

The amendment would make a real difference to the lives of the women affected. It is designed to secure a limited reform, targeted at a specific group whom the Government are not treating fairly, and it would give rise to costs representing just over 1%—one 100th—of the annual pensions budget.

The Chancellor has previously said that

“we are not going to balance the budget on the backs of the poorest and the most disadvantaged,”

but the costs of this Tory-led Government’s acceleration of the state pension age equalisation timetable targets a group with limited resources.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Graham]

I do not believe that that analogy is relevant. As I pointed out earlier to the right hon. Member for Croydon North, any analogy that stretches to compare today’s announcements with those in the original pensions legislation in 1911 is inaccurate, because it leaves aside the critical factor that life expectancy back then was hugely different from what it is now. In fact, the vast majority of people then did not live long enough to collect their pension, whereas today people will be living for 40, or possibly 50, years beyond their pension age—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) is chuntering away, but the reality is that there are people in the public service who are drawing their pension in their 40s or early 50s, and it is not inconceivable that they will live for another 40 years.

[Lyn Brown]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Richard Graham]

I will not give way on that point.

The arguments of the Opposition, who tabled amendments 1 to 7, have been extremely disappointing. My constituents will have heard three main points from the Opposition Front Bench. First, the Opposition have opposed the changes made by the Government on the basis that they do not go far enough. Secondly, the Opposition have strongly intimated that if elected in 2015, they would not implement the changes that they recommend tonight, which reeks strongly of hypocrisy. Thirdly, they have made it clear that they are not concerned about the additional £11 billion costs of their proposals, as they could be dealt with in the future and, therefore, should not affect our debate today. That is an entirely irresponsible attitude, which is entirely in keeping with the words of the former Chief Secretary to the Treasury when he announced that he was sorry there was no money left. It is very disappointing that the same philosophy is still strongly in evidence from the Opposition Front-Bench team.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dame Anne Begg]

The hon. Gentleman has just made my point for me. Yes, we would feel a lot better, but if we had gone into the operation not expecting to lose either leg, but discovered afterwards that we had lost one, we would be absolutely devastated. The result would appear to be the same, but the emotional trauma caused in the meantime is quite different. That is exactly the position faced by these women.

The women we are talking about are not rich; they are not people for whom a billion pounds here or there amounts to pennies or not much money. These are women who have made the financial calculation that they will be able to get their state pension at a particular age. Some of them are still making the calculation that they will get the state pension at 60. I received an e-mail today from someone who could not understand why her pension age had gone up by 30 months. It is because she had not taken into account the original equalisation. That is no fault of the Government, but it illustrates the fact that people need a lot of time to prepare for the change, and even if they have had the time, they are not always prepared for it.

For the group of women who had not realised that the state pension age was going up to 65, it is a double whammy to discover that it is now going up to 66 and that they must face waiting that extra time, perhaps with no income at all. Many of these women will be in that position, even if they have taken early retirement for one reason or another. We know that by the age of 65, only about 40% of women are still in work; they might have fallen out of work for various reasons. Those women will have been depending on getting not just the basic state pension, but probably pension credit and all the other passported benefits that were mentioned earlier. For these women, there is a big hole in their financial planning. We have heard much about the Government’s debt meaning that they cannot possibly afford to do right by the group of women concerned, but the effect will be on those women’s personal debt. They will have to borrow money or in many cases live in pretty dire circumstances if they do not get the pension when they were expecting to get it.

[Lyn Brown]

Does my hon. Friend agree that these women will have to use any small amounts of capital they have to tide them over until their pension kicks in, possibly making them more reliant on state aid once they reach retirement?

[Dame Anne Begg]

Indeed, and there will be many such examples.

Women who hoped that their campaign would move the Government feel very disappointed. It is true that those in one group may have to wait for 18 months rather than two years, but they are still extremely disappointed at the Government’s failure to recognise that what they propose will have a disproportionate effect on a number of women who no longer have time to plan adequately for the future.