Transitional State Pension Arrangements for Women

Richard Arkless Excerpts

Wednesday 24th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Ian Blackford]

I apologise most sincerely for my oversight, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I will make sure it does not happen again.

Conservative Members will have women from the WASPI campaign coming to their surgeries. Let us look at what some of the woman affected have said about their real- life experiences of these changes. Here is one example:

“My husband and I got married in 1974, he is 12 years older than me. I like to think we planned life in the right way. The pension law has put all our plans out the window. I had been planning all my available options, when my husband retired, and in 2011, I requested my state pension forecast. It stated that if I deferred till 2020 I should receive a £14,621 lump sum. I thought this may allow me the option to work two days and still enjoy my family, but thanks to the changes I will no longer receive this. Also, I hadn’t anticipated that my age might make me a prime candidate for redundancy. Losing my job in 2014, was a massive blow. The government may have changed the law, but it turns out many industries don’t want 60+ women. They are effectively retiring us, and forcing us to use our lifetime savings on daily living costs, as no one wants to hire us!”

There are so many points to dwell on there, but most importantly, it speaks of the crushing of so many hopes and dreams.

It is also the case that many women are being forced to work on beyond their expected retirement date, and this brings its own challenges in terms of the availability of suitable employment, and many are sadly experiencing ill health. What has been the response of the Government? It is that other benefits are available. What a response! You have worked hard, paid your dues to society, met your side of the bargain in paying national insurance and expected to receive a pension, yet this callous, heartless Government are ripping that contract up and telling folk to claim benefits. Is that really the answer? You can get means-tested benefits, which will cost the Exchequer, but you are being denied what is rightfully yours. Welcome to “Osborne’s Britain”—callous, cold and undignified.

[Richard Arkless (Dumfries and Galloway) (SNP)]

Is not the crux of the issue that we see a clear breach of contract? If this were a private pension company that unilaterally changed the pension conditions of 2.6 million ladies in this country, this House would quite rightly be up in arms. Those ladies want only to have that contract mitigated fairly. Surely the Government should listen to the 2.6 million ladies in this country, and act now.

[Ian Blackford]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend, who makes a very good point. We were talking earlier about the Financial Conduct Authority and consumer protection, yet here are consumers being ripped off by their own Government, who are ripping up entitlements to the state pension. Conservative Members should be up in arms over this; they should defend the rights of their constituents.

Let me provide just one other example, as I am conscious of the time. Here it is:

“My husband will be 78 by the time I can retire. I had been looking forward to slowing down at 60 and enjoying putting my family, husband, children and grandchildren at the centre of my life. In Cameron’s speech on why families matter in 2014 he stated that he wanted to do ‘everything possible to help support and strengthen family life in Britain today’. Had I been available for my grandchildren, my daughter and her husband would not have had to pay £1700 a month for her two children to go to nursery, putting them in debt. They are both teachers and could not manage their mortgage on one salary. As you can see the changes to the state pension have not supported or strengthened our family, the changes have left us in a state of disarray”—

all thanks to this Conservative Government. That is the reality.

As I sum up—[Interruption.] Well, I could quite happily go on! What are Conservative MPs going to say to women who are going to have to wait six years longer than anticipated for their pension? This is a breach of trust between the Government and the women who have earned the right to a pension. We should recall the advice from the Turner report that such measures should be brought in over a 15-year period to mitigate the impact of any such changes.

We have heard about the failure of communication, which it could be argued means that the start of the 15-year process should be the beginning of the changes in 2010. That means there will effectively be a retirement age of 63 for women as of April this year. The Government could, for example, look at smoothing the increase in pensionable age for women to 2025. The Government should do the right thing and immediately introduce mitigation. Now is the time to act; if not, we will be coming back to this place and fighting for the women who deserve our protection.