Transitional State Pension Arrangements for Women
Debate between Rachel Reeves and Helen Jones(8 years, 9 months ago)
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Helen Jones
The hon. Lady is absolutely right. Again, I will come on to that point a bit later.
Part of the problem in 2011 was that the Government did not seem to understand the implications of their own Bill. When the former Pensions Minister gave an interview to the Institute for Government after the 2015 election, he said, somewhat ungrammatically, I think, but fairly clearly:
“We made a choice, and the implications of what we were doing suddenly, about two or three months later, it became clear that they were very different from what we thought.”
I have known a few Ministers in my time who did not seem to understand the implications of their own Bills, but this was a former Pensions Minister—an acknowledged expert on social security—who did not understand what was going to happen. If he did not understand the position, how on earth could he expect the many thousands of affected women to understand it?
Rachel Reeves (Leeds West) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for securing the debate. She quotes the former Pensions Minister, but the current Minister for Pensions said in 2011:
“The Government has not given women enough time to change their plans…I believe the Government’s decision is unfair and disproportionately hits women who are now around 56 years old.”
She said that then, so it is a shame that now she is in government, she is not trying to change the situation.
Helen Jones
I could not agree more with my hon. Friend.
Let us remember that during our consideration of the 2011 Bill, the then Pensions Minister promised to look at transitional arrangements for some of the women affected. Towards the end of the Bill’s passage, the Government made amendments that at least prevented people from having to wait longer than an extra 18 months for their state pension. That certainly helped some women born between January and September 1954, but there was still a whole load of anomalies that were not dealt with. One of the things that has made the situation worse, as has been said, is the lack of notice that women received about the changes.