State Pension: Women born in the 1950s

Patricia Gibson Excerpts

Thursday 22nd November 2018 Westminster Hall

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered state pension equalisation for women born in the 1950s.

I stand today feeling the weight of despair, the burning sense of injustice and the genuine bewilderment felt by the women who, by sheer bad luck, were born in the 1950s and thereby inexplicably became fair game to be robbed, mugged and made the victims of theft of the most cruel and callous kind. For some women, that theft can be of up to £40,000 in lost pension. A large number of MPs—too many to mention—who support the Women Against State Pension Inequality in their quest for justice sent messages asking me to convey their support despite their absence. Many colleagues across the House dearly wanted to speak in the debate but were unable to attend.

In my lifetime, this could be the most unjust Government policy since the poll tax. It affects 3.8 million women, and 4,800 women in my constituency. The acceleration of the timetable set out in the Pensions Act 1995 has meant that these women have faced changes to the pension age abruptly, with little or no time to adapt and prepare. These women have had their pensions stolen from them—it is as simple as that. They paid into their pensions through a lifetime of work, raising their families, and often acting as carers for other members of their families. They did all the right things, only to be told, when it came time for them to be paid, that the rules of the game had changed. Not only that, but no one had thought to tell them that the rules of the game had changed—and that was just bad luck.

In addition, lower wages and broken employment periods mean that many of these women do not have a full national insurance record, so they receive lower state pensions than men anyway. Indeed, the average woman receives about 82% of what a man receives in his state pension. They also have a fraction of the savings of men. Equalisation is not just about the age at which people reach retirement.

With no time to make alternative plans, many women are suffering, and many are now living in poverty as a direct result of the political choice not to give them their due. Only last week, Philip Alston, the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, concluded that after decades of decline we are now witnessing a rise in pensioner poverty, with the figure rising in recent years by 300,000. He went on to say that

“a group of women born in the 1950s have been particularly impacted by an abrupt and poorly phased in change in the state pension age from 60 to 66.”

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Patricia Gibson]

I will just finish the quotation from the rapporteur. He continued:

“The impact of the changes to pensionable age is such as to severely penalize those who happen to be on the cusp of retirement and who had well-founded expectations of entering the next phase of their lives, rather than being plunged back into a workforce for which many of them were ill-prepared and to which they could not reasonably have been expected to adjust with no notice.”

I would be keen to hear the Minister’s response to the rapporteur’s words. If he wishes to intervene to rebut them, I would be delighted to give way, but in the absence of his seeking to intervene, I will take an intervention from the hon. Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham).

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The next best thing!

[Mr Cunningham]

I do not know about that. I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this timely debate. We have had many such debates, but the Government do not seem to get the message. From the start of the recession until now, women have carried the burden of the recession. In tax adjustments, the Government saved something like £14 billion at the expense of women. The amount the Government are saving through not doing the right thing by these women probably runs into billions. A fraction of those billions could take care of the problem.

[Patricia Gibson]

The hon. Gentleman makes his point well. It was recently said to me that it was interesting that the Government have chosen to pick a fight with women of a certain age, with a policy that will most harshly affect women in a lower income bracket. They will feel the most pain as a result of the policy, and were perhaps considered an easy target. Perhaps the Minister has views on that.

I have participated in every debate on the WASPI women since I was elected, and I repeatedly hear from whoever is responding for the Government—a variety of Ministers have done so—that the policy is about us all living longer. However, the debate is not about life expectancy, although we know that that has stalled; it is about women who had their pension age changed with little or no notice, directly causing considerable hardship.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend has been a consistent campaigner on this issue; there have been so many debates, and it is heartening to see her pressing it so often. She is absolutely right to press the point about life expectancy. Whenever we have had a debate on state pension inequality, the Pensions Minister has been unable to tell me what the life expectancy in my constituency is. Newspapers such as The Guardian like to talk about the life expectancy in Glasgow East, so I am surprised that the Minister does not know that it is not that high. The changes really affect people in my constituency.

[Patricia Gibson]

I suspect that the Minister knows fine well the life expectancy in Glasgow East and various parts of the UK, but it might make uncomfortable reading when trying to impose a one-size-fits-all policy and stealing people’s pensions. Many of the women in my hon. Friend’s constituency, and indeed in my own, will die before they are of age to collect.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has pointed out that more than one in five women—21.2%—in the group affected by the recent increases in the state pension age were in poverty, which is up 6.4% on the situation pre-reform. Meanwhile, analysis by the Centre for Longitudinal Studies found that the poorest pensioners are the least able to work into their later years. It concluded that both men and women who had been poor during their working lives were the most likely to leave the job market between the ages of 50 and 55, with poor health being the key driver.

With striking inequalities in life expectancy and health expectancy, there are great worries that the policy hits hardest the poorest and most vulnerable. That has been borne out by analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies that shows that a third of single women aged between 60 and 63 were in poverty after housing costs—up 13.5% since before the reforms. Similarly, nearly four out of 10 people who rent their homes are in poverty—up from around a quarter. The IFS also found that 1.1 million women had seen their individual incomes fall by an average of £50 a week. Increased income from earnings is simply not enough to offset the loss of pensions. TUC analysis shows that half a million workers who are within five years of state pension age have had to leave the workplace for medical reasons, and that those who have worked in the lowest-paid jobs are twice as likely as managers and professionals to stop working before retirement age, owing to sickness and disability.

In the absence of labour market reforms, it is hard to see how raising the state pension age will allow this group to continue working. Rather, it will mean greater reliance on working-age benefits, which the Government say they wish to avoid. That makes it even more indefensible—this point is key and I hope the Minister is listening, because I would really like him to address it in his reply—that the Government decided to implement the Cridland review’s recommendation to accelerate the rise in pension age to 68, but chose to ignore the welfare reforms that John Cridland said would be essential to cushion the impact of those changes. Will the Minister tell us why? The Government cannot just pick the bits they like; they should implement the whole review or none of it.

The Government have not listened, but that does not mean that these women are not suffering. Many of them have been left destitute. The Government may think that because they are ordinary women—organised, persistent and dignified as they are—they are easier to ignore than rich and powerful men, but the reality does not bear that out. These women have been robbed, betrayed, misrepresented and mistreated, and they will not go away. I repeat a question that I have asked the Government many times: where on earth do they expect these women to go?

[Mr Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

The 10,000 or so WASPI women in my constituency are certainly not natural protesters who wave a placard at the first opportunity. In fact, they have played a very positive role in our communities throughout the years. They are to be found in the women’s institute, making jam, and in many other voluntary groups. It is deeply disappointing that any Government should treat them in such a disrespectful way. Considering that the Chancellor announced more money in the recent Budget, it would have been nice if that Budget had given the WASPI women some recognition.

[Patricia Gibson]

I agree with everything the hon. Gentleman says. One of the most frustrating things that WASPI women have found in their quest for justice is not that they are not getting what they are asking for—bad as that is—but the wall of silence with which they have been met. It is as though they do not exist. That is not acceptable.

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

There have been too many occasions on which Pensions Ministers have said how many years women will get a pension for—once they get it. Can we make it plain that the question is what happens in the years before they get the state pension?

[Patricia Gibson]

The Scottish National party commissioned independent research into how this could be resolved, but the Government rejected it. As far as I can see, they have rejected every other potential solution proposed from every quarter. I would like the Minister to tell us how he thinks the matter can be progressed, because doing nothing is not a sustainable option—certainly not for the WASPI women.

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Patricia Gibson]

I will make some progress.

The WASPI women’s situation is doubly unjust because they are a group who have faced pay discrimination throughout their working lives. They have been paid less, acknowledged less and valued less. Now, when they should be enjoying retirement, they are expected to sit quietly and simply accept the loss of their well-deserved and much-needed state pension. This is not pin money; it is money to pay the rent, buy food, do the shopping and pay the bills. How is that decent, by any measure? It is an absolute disgrace.

The Minister really must have a brass neck if he thinks he can talk his way out of this. The UK Government’s lack of engagement on the issue has been breathtaking in its arrogance. These women know that many of the hardest hit among their number have been driven to self-harm and suicide. Of 873 respondents to research undertaken for the BackTo60 campaign group by the charity SOS Silence of Suicide, almost half had self-harmed because of the stress and hardship caused by this pension reform, while 46% reported having suicidal thoughts as a direct result, and 70 women had attempted to take their own lives. All the while, the UK Government wring their hands and stutter about people living longer.

Such is the Government’s intransigence that these women have been forced to go to court. BackTo60 has launched a judicial review to force the Government to reverse their decision. The argument will be made by Michael Mansfield QC that the pension policy implemented by successive Governments is a gross injustice and is discriminatory, even though the delay in paying out the pensions is in the name of equality—there’s a wee irony for you. Law professor Jackie Jones has argued that the UK is in breach of its international treaty obligations. The demand for what is right—fair transitional arrangements for these women—will not be silenced.

Inconveniently for the Government, the former Pensions Minister, Steven Webb, has conceded that not enough was done to inform and prepare these women for the changes. The Select Committee on Work and Pensions concluded that

“more could and should have been done”

to communicate the changes. It seems that a mess was made of the acceleration of the changes in the Pensions Act 2011, but the only people to pay the price for that mess are the women involved.

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

Many women, including constituents of mine at the Blackfriars pub in Glasgow, are watching this debate and listening to my hon. Friend’s excellent speech. Does she agree that the mythical letters that the Department for Work and Pensions was supposed to send to so many women to tell them that their pensions were changing were so elusive that there was a better chance of finding a golden ticket in a Wonka bar than of getting one?

[Patricia Gibson]

Indeed. I am sure that the WASPI women are gratified to hear the support in this Chamber for their cause and their quest for justice.

Let me turn, before the Minister does, to the well-worn phrases and half-hearted justifications that may well form part of his reply. Let me be clear: this debate is not about the age at which people should retire, nor is it about how we are all living longer. It is about successive UK Governments not communicating significant changes in the women’s pension age, and about the political choice not to address that in order to save money. It is about how expendable women born in the 1950s are to this Government. The fact is that pension equalisation was not supposed to begin until 2020, as set out in the Pensions Act 1995, but that was accelerated in 2011 with no communication of or care for the effect on women. That had the added bonus—accidental, I am sure—of saving the Treasury about £5 billion a year by equalising the state pension age at 65.

In an interesting development, Baroness Altmann, who was formerly a great champion of older people but was neutralised in this debate by being elevated to the Lords and given a ministerial portfolio on pensions, has now told us that she was informed that the 1950s women

“would go away sooner or later.”

Well, guess what: they are still here. They are watching today in this Chamber and in towns and villages across the UK, willing this cruel and heartless Government to listen and do the right thing.

We continue to hear from this Government—I am sure the Minister is planning to mention it—that concessions of £1.1 billion have already been made. That figure is trotted out as though the Government have targeted money at the women affected. That is, at best, disingenuous. The £1.1 billion did not go solely to women and the concessions were limited to 500,000 men and women who were born within a short timeframe—between January and October 1954. The concession took the form of limiting the delay with the change in annually managed expenditure, estimated at £1.1 billion. I want to be clear: £1.1 billion of cash was not doled out to people in envelopes; in fact, it was not a monetary exchange for those involved.

Today I and my party stand beside the WASPI women, who have been the victims of a great injustice. As I said earlier in my speech, it is no less of an injustice than the poll tax. We will continue to stand beside them. The issue has not been debated in the Commons for more than nine months, and I am sure the Government thought the storm had passed. It has not passed. It will not pass. These women are engulfed by the storm every single day they have to manage without their pensions. Up and down the country, in all parts of the UK, WASPI women are watching the debate, inside and outside the Chamber—including Cunninghame WASPI, to whom I pay tribute. All the WASPI women are waiting for justice, hoping against hope that this heartless Government will finally hear their pleas for what is rightfully theirs to be restored to them.

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Patricia Gibson]

I am sorry; I am just about to wrap up.

In the name of all that is just and all that is right, I urge the Minister to go back from the debate today and tell his Government that this must not stand. The WASPI women need and deserve their pensions. Let us get this sorted. Let us undo the damage once and for all, and let us do it now.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Burghart]

That makes two of us, Mr Bone.

The hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran did not talk much about the cost of reversing Government policy, which is a shame. I understand that the SNP has costed the reversal of the Pensions Act 2011 at £8 billion, but other experts see that as a vast underestimate. It would actually cost the taxpayer £30 billion or more. There is no doubt that the Scotland Act 2016 gives the Scottish Government the powers that they need to address the issue.

[Patricia Gibson]

I am really disappointed that we have a speech from somebody who clearly has not read the Scotland Act 2016 and has just lifted the headline from the Daily Mail or whatever it is that he reads. There is no power in that Act to mitigate yet more Tory cuts. We already mitigate Tory cuts to the tune of tens of millions of pounds. Even if we wanted to, under section 28 of the Act—the hon. Gentleman can look it up—we do not have the power. Once again, I urge him to stick to the focus of this debate. He says that I did not talk about money, but I talked about what it has saved the Treasury. Let us spend that money on these women.

[Alex Burghart]

The focus of the debate is compensation for the women involved. It is a fact that the Scottish Government could do more than they are doing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Guy Opperman]

That is the debate that, clearly, has to be held. I return to the point that the decision was originally taken in 1993 by my—then very youthful— right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) and was supported by a series of Governments and Ministers way more experienced than I am, who have been here over the past twenty-something years. I am merely continuing that debate and discussion about how we progress.

[Patricia Gibson]

I thought I heard the Minister say that there had been a fall in pensioner poverty. That leads me to question where he gets his information. The UN special rapporteur was clear: between 2012-13 and 2016-17 there was a 300,000 rise in pensioner poverty in the UK, which he specifically linked to the rise in state pension age. Is the special rapporteur wrong?

[Guy Opperman]

We may take some time to dissect the specific figures on that, but I will attempt to do so—[Interruption.]—if the hon. Lady bears with me.

One starts with the basic principle that the figure used to be at 40% for relative poverty and is now down to 16%. The reason for the 300,000 increase is that more pensioners are in relative poverty after housing costs. That is the issue in relation to relative poverty, because in the past few years the housing costs of those of working age have reduced, because of lower mortgage rates. That reduction in housing costs increases income for those with mortgages, and that pushes median income up. That then feeds through to increase the number of pensioners who are below the 60% of median income poverty line, as the vast majority of pensioners do not have a mortgage and so do not see any benefit from lower mortgage rates. There can be a discussion about relative and absolute poverty and how to measure them, but the overall trend is dramatically down for such poverty, and I believe the explanation of what the rapporteur said is as I have just set out.

I have not addressed the specific point about the Scottish National party proposals and the vexed question of the Scotland Act 2016. As I understand it, various previous proposals—and specifically the one outlined today—would reverse the 2011 Act in its entirety. The SNP’s projected cost for that is £8 billion. We manifestly disagree and suggest it would be in the region of £30 billion, with further costs as long as women’s state pension age was below 66.

As to the Scotland Act powers, I accept that the hon. Members for North Ayrshire and Arran and for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mhairi Black) and I have had robust debate on many such occasions, but I would always say as I have previously, “Don’t take this from me.” I will read the letter from Jeane Freeman of 22 June 2017, in which she sets out what payments can potentially be made under sections 26, 28 and 24 of the Scotland Act 2016. Under the heading of section 26 she states:

“This power is limited to providing help with ‘short term needs’, and those needs must require to be met to avoid a risk to a person’s wellbeing… Their needs and the risks to their well-being would have to be assessed individually.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Patricia Gibson]

I know that I have just two or three minutes to sum up the debate. I am beyond disappointed. We have heard nothing new today. We have seen again a huge lack of any real and meaningful engagement from the UK Government. That lack of engagement has to end. It is dismissive of and disrespectful to an entire generation of women.

Giving speeches on the history of pensions is not what the debate was about, and it does nothing to address either the fact that women’s pensions were stolen or the suffering caused as a result. The debate was not about life expectancy; it was about the theft perpetrated upon women. These women were often excluded from company and workplace pensions. They raised families and cared for relatives and they have now been abandoned by the UK Government. To be told that there is no solution, as we heard from one Government Member today, is frankly an insult. It is not good enough, and the campaign will go on.

Brexit is entirely consuming UK politics, but we can and will continue to keep this issue firmly on the agenda. These women are our mothers, sisters, grannies and wives, and the UK Government have not heard the last of this. The entire state pension system has been undermined by this travesty. A social contract has been broken, and I remind those in this place that an injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered state pension equalisation for women born in the 1950s.