Transitional State Pension Arrangements for Women

Debate between Owen Smith and Dawn Butler

Wednesday 24th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Owen Smith]

My hon. Friend is of course entirely right. He will know, because he was part of the previous Labour Government, that we tried to improve this set of circumstances. We conducted the survey that showed that there was a worryingly low level of understanding. Between 2004 and 2009, the then Labour Government instituted several million-pound advertising campaigns and sent out 800,000 personalised letters to the affected women, such as the one I have here, which, in stark contrast to the Tory letter I cited, says on the first page that the addressee will be affected by the change in age from 60 to 65.

The reality is testified to by many of my hon. Friends and by the brilliant women of the WASPI—Women Against State Pension Inequality—campaign, whose tenacity and truth-telling we should pay tribute to right across this House, because they speak for hundreds of thousands of women who did not know that they were in the firing line.

[Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)]

A total of 4,465 women in my constituency are going to be affected by this. Does my hon. Friend agree that it has been caused by an historical inequality in the system?

[Owen Smith]

Of course it has, because historical inequalities existed then and persist now. The gender pay gap affects women. Women often do not have the full stamp because of their caring duties, and that is why it is doubly unjust that they should now be asked to pay a price in their retirement.