Pension Equality for Women

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Thursday 14th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I completely agree with the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton): this is an entitlement for women. I also commend my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame Morris), who has a real determination to ensure that women get justice.

I am so proud of women. Women in York and across the country are standing up for their rights, and we will back them. My question is this: why is it always women who have to experience so much financial hardship and poverty in later life? We know that the structures of employment drive women into poverty. Some 36% of women work part time, compared with 22% of men. Women working part time earn a third less than full-time men. Women take on responsibilities for intergenerational care. A quarter of women do not return to work after having a child—for 17% of them, that is because of pregnancy discrimination. Therefore, women are already economically disadvantaged.

We know that vertical pay structures with job segregation mean that women earn £25,000 on average, compared with men’s £30,000. There is a north-south divide in this issue too, with women in the north earning less on average than women in the south. We also know that women tend to be concentrated in low-paid jobs. As we have heard, those jobs follow the “Cs”—childcare, eldercare, catering, cashiering, cleaning and clerical work. Often, this is physical labour, which means that it is hard for women to work in later life, and that must be recognised.

When we hear a story in our surgery, as I did on Friday, of a woman who has five jobs—three zero-hours jobs and two part-time jobs—we know that it is tough for women. However, many more women cannot get any employment at all in later life. We also know that the occupational pension that women have saved up for is far less than men’s. On average, women get only £2,500 a year from an occupational pension. Then, there is the further injustice of not being able to receive their state pension, after they have made their contributions. That is a complete disgrace. I am fed up that it is always women who have to pay the price.

If we look at other countries, we see that they take a lifelong approach to pensions. If they bring in changes, people are aware of them decades before. Here, even though the Turner commission talked about a period of 15 years, women are not having their rights honoured.

We therefore have to look particularly at women in poverty and their experience at the moment. As we have just heard, 1.9 million people in our country are living in poverty, and 40,000 people died last winter because they could not even afford to heat their homes, so we have to address the issue of women of pension age in poverty. We know that, among the WASPI women, pensioner poverty has increased from 12% to 21%. There is a real issue to be addressed there.

It was not women who failed, but it is women who have been failed. Women are now having to pay; they have always had to pay, and they have always been discriminated against—to the point of poverty. It was the Government who made these changes. It was the Government who failed to notify these women. We must rectify this gross injustice to end poverty for women in later life. Let us have real dignity for women in the future, and let us honour what they paid into.