State Pension Age (Women)

Robert Neill Excerpts

Thursday 7th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mhairi Black]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s points.

[Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

I have a great deal of sympathy with what the hon. Lady is saying. I am glad that she agrees that the need for equalisation is generally accepted and that it is right and proper. Does she think that it might be sensible to urge the Government to look at the sort of 10 to 15-year transitional arrangements that were made in public sector pensions reform? Would that be a constructive way forward?

[Mhairi Black]

As I said, I do not think that anybody here has a problem with the principle of transitioning towards equality. However, we are talking about women’s pensions, and it is important to bring the discussion back to that.

Many constituents who have written to me said that the information in the letters that they did receive was conflicting. They were getting different information. In one case, a constituent was told that they had enough contributions to receive their full state pension at 60, which was a few months away, only to receive a further letter three weeks later telling her that she will not get her pension until she is nearly 66. Many of the letters did not even get to the people they were supposed to reach. Some people were told by MPs and Ministers that they must have given the DWP the wrong addresses, but those women had been living in the same house for more than 20 years, so I find that difficult to believe.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tim Loughton]

I applaud the hon. Lady. I have had representations from constituents who were in low-paid jobs with huge caring responsibilities for children and other family members when they did not have access to free child care and other things—and we have them to thank. Yet it is those people for whom I believe there has been a breach of trust, as these changes hit them disproportionately. We have a large duty of care to them, but I do not think we are going to fulfil it.

[Robert Neill]

I very much agree with everything my hon. Friend is saying. Will he concede that in other pension reforms, we were anxious as a Government to make sure that there was protection for those who were not able to change their circumstances? This operates particularly unfairly on people such as one of my constituents who has worked all her life but is unable to return to work because of a pre-existing medical condition, so she cannot change her circumstances.

[Tim Loughton]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is why fairness needs to be applied to everybody, and in this case, there is a cohort of women who are simply not being treated fairly. Our state pension system is funded on the contributory principle. This is not a state benefit for which no prior commitment is involved, yet this group of women who have been paying national insurance contributions over many years in good faith and who have fulfilled their end of the deal face being short-changed retrospectively.

We need to bear in mind many other factors. Fewer than one in four women who qualify for the new state pension in 2016-17 will get the full amount. Right up to 2054, fewer women than men will qualify for the full standard pension. Women are significantly more likely than men to work part time, and to do so for longer periods throughout their working lives, largely driven by caring roles, as hon. Members have mentioned. They therefore tend to be under-pensioned.

I welcome the fact that the new single-tier pension will recognise periods of time spent caring, which will help in the future, and I acknowledge that the Government have made progress on shrinking the gender pay gap—an issue on which consultation is in place. Progress has been made, with more women in work than ever before. We have seen lots of generous reforms—on entitlement to free child care, the national living wage and so forth—but all those are far too late for a generation of women who relied on work without many of the benefits that we now take for granted, while bringing up their families and discharging their caring responsibilities. Because of the number of women who are going out to work, many others have caring responsibilities for grandchildren as well as having to hold down part-time jobs.