State Pension Age

Martin Whitfield Excerpts

Tuesday 21st November 2017 Westminster Hall

[Martin Whitfield (East Lothian) (Lab)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Hugh Gaffney) on securing this profoundly important debate.

The state pension age has been discussed for over 70 years. I appreciate that we only have an hour to add meaningful contributions, which is why I wish to speak about the handling of the state pension age. As hon. Members are aware, both the Pensions Act 1995 and the Pensions Act 2007 looked to stagger the equalisation of the state pension age over a series of years. Regrettably, there has been an unfair acceleration of this process, trapping half a million women, who must wait at least an extra year to receive their state pension. It is estimated that over 6,000 women in my constituency of East Lothian alone have been affected.

Let me make it clear: this is not about the principle of equalising the state pension age; it is about the practical roll-out of the policy. In 2005, the Pensions Commission argued that any planned increase to the state pension age should carry at least 15 years notice, the same timeframe that was contained in the 1995 Act. The 2014 Pensions Act established, however, that 10 years notice of state pension age increase was appropriate, and the Pensions Act 2011 gave just five years to plan for these changes. Age UK have been very clear on this, saying that it gives

“insufficient time to prepare for retirement.”

There is also the question of how the information was brought to the attention of those affected.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

I very much agree with the hon. Gentleman’s point about the notification period that people have been given. Does he agree that it is a scandal that women such as my constituent Winifred Setzekorn only found out about the increase in their state pension age four years before turning 60?

[Martin Whitfield]

Absolutely, and the point is very well made.

Across the UK, the profound unfairness of the changes has influenced and empowered local action groups working under the WASPI campaign. This debate was sought not only because of the inherent unfairness of the accelerated change, but because it offers an opportunity to pay credit to the diligence of some of the WASPI women in the work they do—women such as Pat Milligan, a local WASPI co-ordinator in East Lothian, who puts it far better and more eloquently than I. She tells those women she meets who have been trapped by these changes that they need to be active, write to the Minister and take their complaint to the Government. In her words:

“This is your pension; this is your fight.”

I am therefore tentatively pleased that the Minister has promised to create a dedicated team to handle these complaints, but it will be interesting to see what response complainants get.

On a wider note, the way that we parliamentarians handle this issue is also critical. Among the 6,000 women affected in East Lothian, those aged between 60 and 62 will see their incomes fall disastrously.