State Pension Age: Women

Debate between Robert Neill and Tim Loughton

Wednesday 30th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I will come on to that in the very limited time available.

I am concerned that the Government’s amendment to the motion is just another example of them sticking their head in the sand and hoping the problem will go away. I acknowledge the wisdom of Mr Speaker in selecting the Government amendment, rather than those in my name and other hon. Members, but it appears to have little to do with the subject of the debate—the effect of pension age equalisation on WASPI women. I welcome the average rise of £550 a year for 3 million women. I welcome the increases in the basic pension, which the Secretary of State talked about. I welcome the introduction of the triple lock. Frankly, however, to produce such an amendment adds insult to injury. WASPI women will not be able to enjoy those benefits for up to six further years. That is the whole point. These women will not qualify for the benefits for a much longer time and they need help now. In addition, and despite what we have heard, women’s life expectancy actually fell last year for the first time in many years. The Chancellor, understandably, recently declined to guarantee the triple lock for years to come. By the time many of the WASPI women qualify, they will not be able to enjoy the security of the triple lock. That is why I cannot support the Government amendment. I urge hon. Members to refrain from supporting it, too. Frankly, to vote for such a disappointing and inappropriate amendment would be an insult to the many WASPI women who have campaigned so hard.

I also have a problem with the SNP motion. Mr Speaker, you were lucky enough not to be here when the hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) spent 36 minutes losing my vote. SNP Members have been unilaterally pushing this cause. I am grateful that they do so, but in Scotland they do not have to pay for it. That is why we never hear solutions from the SNP. The motion references the Landman report, which relies heavily on the magic money tree known as the national insurance fund. We know the fund has been in deficit and that the Government, who have a responsibility for pensions up and down the country, had to top it up. The SNP suggestion is, in reality, a pension fund-raiding exercise.

I am disappointed that Mr Speaker did not choose my amendment, simply because it asked for a dialogue to be opened up—that we prioritise looking at the most extreme cases of hardship, which we all now see in our surgeries. The amendment does not commit to specific substantial spending and it certainly does not call for a reversion to the pre-1995 status quo. We support pension age equalisation. It is just that the speed of the transition process has led to unintended consequences for a large number of women. Many hon. Members have seen cases at first hand in their surgeries. We just want to talk.

[Robert Neill]

I agree that it is regrettable that we were not able to debate my hon. Friend’s amendment. I would have supported it. Does he agree that we are where we are, and that we should not go down the extravagant SNP route? We should take the Secretary of State up on his offer of dialogue to find something constructive for those most in need.

[Tim Loughton]

I agree. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for seeing a delegation from the all-party group just a few days ago, even though there is no preparedness to discuss specific options. He has, however, offered to look at examples of hardship, particularly where women are being offered very inappropriate and impractical jobs by jobcentres up and down the country. We have examples from all over the place of women aged 65 being offered bar jobs in a nightclub or a job stacking shelves at 4 o’clock in the morning. It is just not working in practice. We need to be much more sensitive and sensible to the particular work needs of these women if they do indeed have to go back to work, and transitional arrangements cannot hold them back from doing that.

I also made the point earlier about there being just seven of these older people champions at jobcentres up and down the country. We do not need to go over the issues again. We heard them today, and we have heard them nine times before: the poor communication; the little notice or no notice of the change; the fact that women from the 1950s worked in very different environments, where they did not get equal pay or childcare benefits, or have access to occupational pension schemes, and typically worked part time. I believe if we proceed on these lines it will be a breach of trust between hundreds of thousands of women who have worked hard, brought up families and done the right thing—and some of them also have caring responsibilities—and the Government.

The state pension system is founded 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, now stand to have their reasonable expectations dashed.

I urge the Government to think again and to talk, and let us come up with a sensible proposal.

State Pension Age (Women)

Debate between Robert Neill and Tim Loughton

Thursday 7th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[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.