Transitional State Pension Arrangements for Women

Debate between Owen Smith and Derek Twigg

Wednesday 24th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a very good speech. Increasing numbers of women in my constituency have been coming to my surgery and writing to me about this, many of whom I have known for many years because I was born and bred in the constituency. I am absolutely convinced of their sincerity and that they knew nothing about this because of the lack of notification. We saw earlier at Prime Minister’s Question Time the Prime Minister’s complete lack of understanding, or even care, for these women.

[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.

Finance (No. 4) Bill

Debate between Owen Smith and Derek Twigg

Wednesday 18th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

There are a couple of points to make. First, there is no uncertainty that 14,000 millionaires will significantly benefit from the change. Where there is uncertainty, however, is in the Government’s arguments about the overall impact on the Exchequer, in terms of tax gained and tax lost. The Select Committee on the Treasury has said today:

“The cost and benefits of reducing the additional tax rate to 45p are both highly uncertain”.

The Government have tried to make an argument, but they have not even got the facts right in the first place to make their argument stick.

[Owen Smith]

The word “uncertain” is used so many times in the various documents that I have lost count. In fact, I must apologise to the Committee. On Monday evening, I said, perhaps with my dander up, that there were three instances in the HMRC document of the words “uncertain” or “uncertainty”, when there are in fact 32 such references—one for just about every page. I shall read out some excerpts from the document later.