State Pension Age Equalisation
Debate between Richard Graham and Tim Loughton(8 years, 6 months ago)
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Richard Graham
The hon. Lady is right to say that women born after April 1953 had their state pension age increase accelerated under the previous Government. Paul Lewis referred to the three waves of women affected by the changes. Nothing changed for the first wave—the 1950 to 1953 group—but things changed for women born after April 1953. It is correct to say that the state pension age was accelerated for them.
Coming back to the point on communication, it is interesting that in recent evidence to the Work and Pensions Committee, the previous Pensions Minister said that it was unclear to him at exactly what stage people affected by the 1995 Act were written to. The Minister here today referred at DWP questions to a letter writing campaign from 2009 to 2010. Can he say more about that? For example, does his Department believe that that was the first stage at which women affected were written to, or was there an earlier campaign before 2009? That would be interesting to know. To some extent, the decision in December 2013 to give people affected by future pension changes,
“at least 10 years’ notice”,
shows that the DWP has taken on board the point the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South made on lessons learned.
Tim Loughton
I agree with my hon. Friend that the principle of equalising the pension age is not what is at stake in this debate. Given the clear confusion on who was told what and when, and the fact that such changes could not be made in such an accelerated fashion now for the very reason that he just mentioned, does he not agree that some form of transitional relief should be looked upon favourably? As the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) said, it is not just the amount of pension, but the delay in other benefits, such as bus passes and free prescriptions, that negatively impacts on those women who happen to have fallen foul of the changes, simply because of when they were born.
Richard Graham
That is a perfectly valid point that is clearly part of the WASPI campaign, and the Minister will want to comment on it. “Transitional arrangements” is both a comfortable phrase and something with significant financial implications, and he will want to discuss that.