Transitional State Pension Arrangements for Women

Mhairi Black Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2016 Westminster Hall

[Richard Graham]

Thank you, Mr Stringer; I am doing my best to take interventions. My right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) made a very reasonable point. The previous Labour pensions spokesman said that, in the four months in which he was in the role, he was

“grappling with how best to work out the transitional provisions.”

I hope that we hear more about what the Labour party intends to do in practice.

One of greatest difficulties in this debate is about the word “fair”. Over the weekend, a lot of WASPI campaigners were tweeting me back and forth about various issues regarding the debate and their e-petition. One of the most interesting views came from a woman born in early 1960 who made a point about what would happen were the main WASPI campaign ask to be given—that is, if everybody born in the 1950s were backdated as if they had been born before 1950. She asked why she and her contemporaries should bear the burden on behalf of those who would effectively be given an exemption from the changes, and who were born only a few months before her.

The problem is that whenever a change is made, some will always be relatively better off and some will be relatively worse off. I strongly support women born in the 1950s—as I hope I made clear from the fact that my wife and sisters are both girls of the 1950s—but to imply that somehow they must take preference over those born a few months before or after is a different kind of potential unfairness.

The second point of the debate is all about communication. Communication is at the heart of what many of the campaigners feel is unfair about the changes made in 1995 and 2011. However, it is simply not true that nobody knew, as the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mhairi Black) claimed in the debate in the main Chamber. In 2004 the then Labour Government estimated from their research in the Department for Work and Pensions that 75% of those affected had been told. A separate study by the DWP—not yet referred to in debate, but unearthed by the pensions correspondent at the Financial Times over the weekend—demonstrated that seven out of 10 people spoken to knew about the change in the pension age. The truth is that we will never know the precise figure. We will never know exactly how many people knew, did not know, and might have been told about it but ignored it because it was all a long way in the future—20 years away.

[Mhairi Black (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (SNP)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for allowing this intervention. Does he not find it strange that thousands upon thousands of women from different careers, different backgrounds and different classes are all coming together to claim exactly the same thing, which is that they were not told? The DWP has conflicting records on what letters were sent out and when, so we should be careful when addressing the point that people were told.

[Richard Graham]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right that we can be sure that not everybody knew and that not all of those who were told took the information to heart. We can be sure that some people were not told—there is no doubt about that. The pensions correspondent at the Financial Times told me:

“I dispute the evidence given to the Committee… by Lin Phillips, that ‘There was not much in the newspapers, only maybe a little bit in the business pages.’”

The correspondent has done a detailed study that will be presented as written evidence to the Select Committee, and she went on to say that she has looked at coverage from 1993, when the changes to equalise the state pension age for men and women was first mooted by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke). She says that, from 1994 to 2006, there were hundreds of mentions of the state pension age in the news sections and the personal finance pages, as well as in the business pages.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mhairi Black (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I shall be as brief as possible.

On 7 January, I was happy to lead a debate on the issues raised by Women Against State Pension Inequality. We heard, first, how consecutive Governments did not give women enough information or notification; and secondly, how, owing to the acceleration of equalisation, women were not given enough time to make appropriate financial arrangements for themselves. A motion was tabled calling on the Government to consider new transitional arrangements; it was overwhelmingly passed by the House, with 158 votes for and zero votes against.

Despite all that, I am still no further forward in understanding whether this Government have any intention of considering new transitional arrangements. Instead, I have been met with the same three rebuttals over and over—we heard some of them in the previous speech—given by the Government to justify doing absolutely nothing. I know that many colleagues will, as previous speakers have done, mention personal stories and examples showing the human cost of the issue, but I shall focus on the three rebuttals continually given by the Government.

First, we hear that the single-tier pension will solve all the problems these women face, but the reality is that they will receive the higher rate of the new state pension only if they have paid national insurance for 35 years. That means that many individuals who have had low-income or part-time jobs, or who have been in and out of work because they have cared for children, elderly parents or disabled family members, will not meet the 35-year contributions level. It is important to note that approximately 80% of those in this category who will not qualify for the higher rate are women. The idea that the single-tier pension is the answer to the problems that these women face is absolute nonsense and totally irrelevant.

It is also incredibly damaging to continue sending that message. Only this month, The Telegraph reported inaccurate communication from the Department for Work and Pensions to pensioners, after thousands of workers were told that the number of years needed had been reduced to 30, when the new scheme will actually require 35 years. Similarly, and rather embarrassingly, the Select Committee on Work and Pensions raised concerns about the Prime Minister’s misleading claim that the new single-tier pension will start at £150. The Pensions Minister, Baroness Altmann, had to explain:

“That is the full new rate for someone who starts building up from April 2016. That is where there has been so much misunderstanding”.

The whole reason why we find ourselves with this problem in the first place begins with poor communication between the Government and those affected, and it seems that this Government have not learned any lessons from that poor communication. They cannot continue to imply that the single-tier pension will solve the problem, because it will not.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is making a powerful case, but will she concede that thirty thirty-fifths of the new single-tier pension are still worth more than the old pension?

[Mhairi Black]

I accept that point, but how is it relevant to what these women are facing?

It would seem that this is not the first time that the Government have misled people, or certainly gotten their facts wrong. The Pensions Minister gave inaccurate information to the Work and Pensions Committee when she said that WASPI was calling for the Government to undo the Pensions Act 1995—in other words, to reduce the pension age for women back to 60. That is strange, given that she was so involved with WASPI before being employed by the Government.

That brings me on neatly to the second reason why the Government think that nothing should be done: the principle of equality. We hear time and again that this is about equality, which is why we cannot repeal the 1995 Act and why the women affected should just put up with it. Let me set the record straight for the Government and for the Pensions Minister so that there can be no more confusion or inaccurate information: no one is calling for the 1995 Act to be repealed. No one is against the principle of equality. Neither I nor my colleagues nor the WASPI women—nor anybody in this room, I think—are against the principle of equalisation; it is about the speed of it, and the inadequate time and information given to the women affected. I truly hope that when the Minister responds to this debate, we do not hear at great length why equalisation is important. That is agreed. We want the Government to address specifically the speed at which it is being implemented.

The third and final reason commonly given to justify doing nothing is that the issue has already been debated, in 2011. That is correct. The changes were previously considered, and the concerns being raised now were raised then, which is why the Government rightly recognised that the initial transitional arrangements were not appropriate and responded, “Do you know what? We’ve listened, and you’ve got a point,” and changed the waiting period from two years to 18 months.

But if colleagues speak to Pensions Ministers or pensions experts, as I hope they do regularly, the Ministers and experts will say that quite often they do not fully know or appreciate potential problems with pensions until they experience them, and it is then that they have to respond appropriately. So yes, although this issue was debated in 2011, we are returning to tell the Government that in fact the initial six-month concession is not enough. It is not working out, so they have to consider something else that works better.

I have outlined why the Government’s responses have been completely inaccurate and often irrelevant. I do not want to hear that the new single-tier pension is the answer, because it is not; I do not want to hear speeches about the concept of equality, because it is irrelevant; I want to hear a genuine response from the Government on this matter. I said during the last debate that I did not believe that the policy was vindictive or deliberate, but with the knowledge of everything that is happening, it will become deliberate. That is not something I want tied to my name.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Miller]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point but we are today debating a petition and I am just trying to focus on that. There is so much debate in the Chamber about exactly what we are talking about, and it is important that we consider the petition as it is written rather than as we might like it to be written, which is what he is talking about. Considering the petition is important, because so many people have supported it, but we also need to consider how any changes that would be made, in the way that is being suggested, would be financed. To ignore that and to simply try to pretend that that is not the case would not be fair on those who have created the petition and those who have signed it, because they are pretty clear what they want.

I hope that the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Mr Vara), who will respond to this debate, will be clear about what the exact elements of the petition would mean. Equally, however, I hope that he will be clear about some of the other issues that hon. Members have raised, particularly the notification of those who have been affected by this change, which I will focus on in the remaining few minutes that I have.

The hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mhairi Black) is absolutely right when she says that there appears to have been a great deal of communication —no doubt, extremely expensive communication—over a great many years but very little understanding of what has actually come out and been given to people. It is regrettable that the Pensions Act 1995 did not contain a requirement to communicate effectively with those who were affected by it. Although a leaflet was published at the time, I have no doubt that it was entirely ineffective.

Lord Willetts, who was a Member of this House at the time, pressed the issue back in 2002 in parliamentary questions. The hon. Member for Warrington North is absolutely right to say that at that point there was potentially a gross dereliction of duty at the DWP in not ensuring that there was more effective communication, but I guess that we could also look at the fact that the Department undertook research that clearly showed that three quarters of the women affected were aware of the increase in the state pension age. Perhaps that is why the then Labour Government did not do more at that point.

[Mhairi Black]

I just want to set the record straight. I am trying to draw attention to the poor level of communication and to the miscommunication, and I hope that the Government will learn from that.

[Mrs Miller]

I can reassure the hon. Lady that that is exactly the point I am making—a great deal of money was spent on things that clearly did not work. Otherwise, we would not be here today.

We know that the women who are affected were written to on numerous occasions. Clearly, they were not communicated with in an effective way, and some of the research I have referred to may well have been misleading in the impression it gave to the then Labour Government and the coalition Government that followed.

What I would like to hear from the Minister today is exactly how he will ensure that not only will the women currently affected by the situation really understand the true position that they are in following quite complex mitigation but that we never, ever find ourselves in this situation again.