Oral Answers to Questions

Roger Mullin Excerpts

Tuesday 6th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend about this vital means of reducing reoffending. We will be launching a new employment strategy next year in partnership with employers, and prisoners can take up apprenticeships in and out of prison so that we create the link between prison and the outside world. Most importantly, we are matching jobs that are available on the outside with the training and work that prisoners do on the inside so that there is a pathway to employment.

[Roger Mullin (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP)]

T8. The European criminal records information system enables the UK to access information about the convictions of EU nationals, but the future of our involvement is now unclear. What plans does the Department have to ensure that there is effective engagement post-Brexit?

[Sir Oliver Heald]

It is important that the Scottish Parliament and Government liaise with the UK Parliament and Government about Brexit, and that is happening, as the hon. Gentleman knows. ECRIS is an important system, but the Government are not announcing their Brexit negotiating position at this stage.

Maxwellisation Process

Roger Mullin Excerpts

Thursday 17th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Roger Mullin (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP)]

It is indeed an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Madam Deputy Speaker. One thing I know about your good self is that any interventions or judgments that you make in the course of the debate will be both independent and timeous—matters not unconnected to this debate. I say from the outset that my intention is to raise an important matter for discussion. I do so with humility. I do not pretend that I have all the answers, which may come as a major shock to many of my hon. Friends.

On a number of occasions here, I called for the early publication of the Chilcot report. I was met with sympathy from the Government, but it was clear that one reason for such a long delay in the publication was the Maxwellisation process that Sir John Chilcot chose to follow, when there was no statutory requirement at all for him to do so. It is also very clear that there has been a gradual adoption of the Maxwellisation process in areas of investigation and reporting which fundamentally calls into question whether reports are, in fact, truly independent.

In response to a query from my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands) a short time ago, and to put it in layman’s terms, I should say that Maxwellisation is the process of sending extracts of reports to individuals who are criticised in some way, allowing them in many cases an extraordinary length of time to respond. We then are blind as to how far their responses lead report authors to change their judgments. This is not just a process of checking the facts, as competent inquiries will check the facts as they go along. This process allows individuals facing criticism to challenge the interpretation and judgment of report authors. That is a fundamental undermining of the independence of those report authors and it does a disservice to the House.

My own background makes me rather sceptical of, and concerned about, the approach. For well over 30 years, I ran a series of small research companies, and we were often commissioned to undertake investigations into organisations of many sorts, often involving the behaviour of groups that were undertaking activities that were disadvantageous to the organisation or the wider society. It would not be unreasonable to say that all my past clients valued the fact that at the end the day they knew they would be getting my conclusions and my recommendations alone. They might have gone on to criticise and debate those recommendations or amend them, but what they valued most was that somebody was investigating a situation and was willing to draw conclusions independently that could then set an agenda for others to pursue.

In another part of my life, I was sometimes involved in academic research. Much of the greatest academic research that is undertaken in, for example, the social sciences explores the role of human behaviour, often citing individual instances, but there is no requirement for academic authors to return to the individuals dealt with in their studies and ask them to comment on their interpretations. Indeed, that would be considered bad practice, as it would undermine their academic freedom. When it comes to politics, however, over the years we have developed for the House of Commons a process that allows people who are subject to criticism to be the only ones who are given sight of what is going to be said, and the only ones who are allowed to respond to authors.

Why has this issue arisen? Originally, the so-called Salmon letters emerged from an inquiry undertaken by the Royal Commission on Tribunals of Inquiry, which reported in 1966. The letters were intended to warn individuals of criticisms and give them an opportunity to respond, but the procedures set out by Lord Justice Salmon were heavily criticised for being more suited to an adversarial trial than to an inquisitorial process.

Then, some years later, along came that corporate crook Robert Maxwell. Maxwellisation developed from a judgment in a private action brought by him against the Department of Trade and Industry. Maxwell applied for an interim injunction to restrain inspectors from proceeding with their investigation. Mr Justice Forbes declined to grant the injunction, but said that natural justice demanded that draft conclusions that were critical of a person should be submitted to that person to give them an opportunity to respond. Maxwell then took legal action directly against the DTI. Mr Justice Wien found against him, and an appeal ensued.

Lord Denning, Master of the Rolls at the time, was one of the judges who heard the appeal against the second judgment, and he upheld Mr Justice Wien’s conclusions. Despite that, the myth has arisen that Maxwellisation developed as a result of a victory in court by Maxwell, although in fact he continually lost, and that Maxwellisation is a legal requirement, which it is not, although many people think it is. It is simply a kind of convention that has been adopted but has no legal force.

Creeping Maxwellisation has been leading to concerns in different areas. I have cited Chilcot, which was not a statutory inquiry but a Privy Counsellor inquiry established by my predecessor as Member of Parliament for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, but, more recently, the Treasury Committee has shown considerable interest in the subject. In April this year, it announced an inquiry into Maxwellisation. Its Chair, the right hon. Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie), has been quoted as saying:

“It took seven years for taxpayers—who had to foot the £20.5 billion bail-out of HBOS—to obtain a full explanation of HBOS’s failure. Serious management, governance and regulatory oversight failures all contributed to the bank’s collapse. The seven year wait was prolonged”—

seriously prolonged—

“by Maxwellisation. The public will want reassurance that Maxwellisation is fair and proportionate, and does not lead to unacceptable delays…Maxwellisation was never intended to be a means by which interminable argument would develop about every last detail of a regulator’s report. To permit that would undermine confidence in the public review process.”

Indeed, it is perhaps not unreasonable of me to speculate that the lack of action against some rogue bankers was made easier by the absence of robust, independent reports.

One concern for those in favour of the process of Maxwellisation is that without it some individuals might be exposed to defamation action. I am guessing this might be a concern both for some individuals who are cited in reports in a critical way and for the report authors. However, I believe there is a means to bring Maxwellisation to an end without opening the prospect of defamation proceedings, thereby assisting both in having reports published more quickly and having greater confidence in their independence.

My understanding is that the best way to evade the legal difficulties raised by making criticisms of individuals without giving them the right to the process of Maxwellisation is to make the report of any inquiry a so-called return to Parliament. This was the case for the Scott and Hutton inquiries for instance. This ensures that the report enjoys the protection of the Parliamentary Papers Act 1840 and is subject to privilege. It is quite clear to me that there has been utterly inadequate scrutiny of the Maxwellisation process.

It is with great regret that I have to say that over many months I kept asking, very often at Business questions, “Where is the Chilcot report?” Many other Members were asking the same question. I am very sad now that I was unaware that there were ways in which we could have avoided this. I was unaware that Chilcot did not need to invoke a Maxwellisation process; it was simply his personal choice as chair of that inquiry. I think the time is coming when the Government need to think very seriously about whether this House is well served by a process that undermines the independence of reports brought it.

As I move towards a conclusion—I want to allow the Minister sufficient time to respond—I shall quote the journalist Chris Ames, who followed the Chilcot inquiry and wrote extensively on Maxwellisation. He feared that independence was being subverted in another way:

“Although the inquiry began in 2009, and all witnesses have had years to bring evidence to its attention, it appears that Maxwellees have been allowed to read and cite other confidential documents, besides those cited by the inquiry. Have any conditions or limitations been imposed on this exercise?”

We do not know. He continues:

“Without them, there is a clear risk that it could turn into an unlimited fishing expedition by Maxwellees in pursuit of material which would help their defence.”

How much new material they introduced into the process we still do not know.

In a former life—I have had many—I taught in the area of judgment theory. Those who have researched judgments know only too well that if we allow simply a one-sided process for people only to search out the evidence that suits them, we cannot have a balanced view. We cannot have confidence that we have a balanced view if the only people who were asked to submit to the report’s authors were those few who were criticised, but those who would make criticisms did not have the same rights of review, let alone, in the instance of Chilcot, the families who suffered the grievous burden of Iraq having the same rights as those criticised.

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

Does my hon. Friend agree that if the primary concern about Maxwellisation is the prospect of defamation, and defamation cannot happen unless the statement is false, would not one solution be that public inquiries get protection from defamation? Under Maxwellisation, the offended party could simply say, “It wasn’t me, guv” and persuade that there is an action for defamation, and then all those allegations fall. There is a simple solution, is there not?

[Roger Mullin]

I defer to my hon. Friend, who is a distinguished lawyer trained in both the Scottish and English jurisdictions. I would hesitate to criticise him at all. It strikes me that he is making another intervention on a reasonable point that the Government should consider. I hope that the Minister will respond in the same spirit and let us seek solutions that will allow us to preserve the independence of reporting to this House.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Dr Phillip Lee)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Roger Mullin) on securing the debate. When the Government decide that an inquiry is needed to investigate a matter of public concern, they will generally begin by asking whether it should be held under the Inquiries Act 2005 and use the Inquiry Rules 2006. Inquiries can be non-statutory, as was the case for the Iraq inquiry. Inquiries may also be established under specific legislation such as the Financial Services Act 2012. However they are constituted, inquiries perform an important role of holding public bodies to account, and providing answers to issues and events of concern. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that an inquiry and its eventual report must be, and must be seen to be, independent of the Government.

The principle of Maxwellisation allows those at risk of criticism in an official report to respond before that report is published. The process takes its name from Robert Maxwell, who was criticised in a Department of Trade and Industry report as being

“unfit to hold the stewardship of a public company”.

He took that matter to court and in fact lost his case, but the Court of Appeal reaffirmed that the principles of natural justice require prior notice to be given of actual or potential criticism so that an individual can be given a chance to respond. There are also what are known as Salmon principles, which came from Lord Justice Salmon’s 1966 royal commission on tribunals of inquiry. The second principle states:

“Before any person who is involved in an inquiry is called as a witness, he should be informed of any allegations which are made against him and the substance of the evidence in support of them.”

This means that when someone gives evidence, the inquiry chair should notify them in advance if they are at risk of criticism, and of the reasons for it, so that they can address those issues when they give their evidence.

We all want the warning letter process to be handled as quickly as possible, but I do not share the concern that it can affect the independence of an inquiry’s findings and report. The Government believe that the process is fair and transparent, and that it does not prevent an inquiry from producing an independent and robust report.

[Roger Mullin]

Am I correct in interpreting the Minister as saying that he does not believe there is a case for setting a time limit for this process? I am sure he is well aware that one of the criticisms of the Chilcot inquiry, and of the HBOS inquiry that I cited earlier, was that people took an interminable amount of time to respond. Surely it would be reasonable to establish a protocol to ensure that the process is not dragged out unnecessarily by those who are subject to criticism.

[Dr Lee]

The Maxwellisation process in the Chilcot inquiry did take a long time, but in response to the hon. Gentleman, I should like to quote Sir John Chilcot. He has stated:

“The Maxwell process, first, was essential, but secondly, did not hold up the rest of the work. While we had draft text out for comment from criticised witnesses, we were doing all sorts of other work to finalise the report...I think that it did, in the end, prove a constructive dimension to the Inquiry’s work.”

As I was saying, we all want the warning letter process to be handled as quickly as possible, but I do not share the concern that it can affect the independence of an inquiry’s findings and report. The Government believe that the process is fair and transparent and does not prevent the inquiry from producing an independent and robust report. Furthermore, under the 2005 Act, the chair has a duty to have regard to fairness and must be impartial. There is nothing in the Act or rules that requires a chair to change their report in the light of any representations received from an individual. The purpose of the warning is not to seek a person’s consent to what the chair is minded to say about them. I am confident that inquiry chairs take a sensible and robust approach that does not allow for abuse of the process, and I am also confident that they will continue to do so.

The Lords Select Committee on the Inquiries Act 2005 published its findings in March 2014. The report cited evidence on the warning letter process from inquiry chairs such as Sir Robert Francis, QC, the chair of the Mid Staffordshire inquiry. He said:

“Some recipients asked that they be given sight of any revision of the potential criticism before publication of the Inquiry report. I declined to do so; first because the Rules do not provide for such a facility, and second because it would have been impracticable and undesirable.”

It is therefore clear that inquiry chairs are adequately equipped to deal with inappropriate requests and that the process does not mean that there needs to be endless back and forth until the recipient is happy with what will be said.

On 2 November 2016, when giving evidence to the Liaison Committee about the Iraq inquiry, Sir John Chilcot said:

“in the pursuit of fairness, and also in the pursuit of getting the best possible quality of report, the Maxwell process, far from holding up the show, actually improved the eventual outcome. For example, our attention was brought to documents that had not been either disclosed or discovered in the course of our other evidence-taking and that were relevant. Then again, where you get two individuals’ perspectives on the same point, and they are not the same perspective, it is very helpful to know that and to be able to either come to a conclusion about it or, as we did in one case, simply point to the fact there is a clash of evidence which couldn’t be resolved.”

Sexual Offences (Pardons Etc) Bill

Roger Mullin Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 21st October 2016 Commons Chamber

[John Nicolson (East Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

It is a great pleasure to welcome so many Members of the House to their places. When I was born in the 1960s—[Hon. Members: “No!”] It is hard to believe, I know. Members will notice that I did not say at which end of the 1960s I was born. At that time, two men who were in love could be sent to prison for what they chose to do in the privacy of their own homes. It is hard to fathom the mindset of those who defended such gross intrusion into the lives and rights of others. When we read the speeches made in this place at the time of the decriminalisation Act, the Sexual Offences Act 1967, we see that many Members presumed to tell their fellow citizens who they could and could not love, often couching their speeches in the most prurient and lascivious terms.

So it went on. Even after decriminalisation, numerous homophobic laws remained on the statute book—laws that existed only to enshrine inequality, ensuring that gay men could never enjoy the full fruits of equal citizenship. When I was a student at Glasgow University, the student union banned the university gay society from holding meetings and dances on its premises. The gay students could do absolutely nothing about that, because there was no equality protection under the law.

When I left university and applied for a job in the civil service and the diplomatic service, I was told that I had to sign an affidavit confirming that I was not gay. I would not do that, and therefore I could not qualify for the post. In the 1980s, the tabloids screamed abuse about gay men and AIDS, and it was routine to conflate homosexuality with paedophilia.

Small wonder that it was hard to come out as gay. I confess that I found it tough. I came from a modest Presbyterian background, I went to church every Sunday, I went to Sunday school and I went to the crusaders. I prayed not to be gay. At school, gay was the worst taunt possible. There were, hon. Members may remember, gay and straight ways of throwing a ball, and it was important to be very sure which was which. [Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald) laughs in clear recognition.

We had few, if any, role models. The TV stars Larry Grayson and John Inman were staples of Saturday night television who fitted the gay stereotype: comic characters who were single and, as we know from their biographies, in denial about who they were. The future as a young gay boy did not look promising. Who would want to be gay in a country where gay people had to hide who they were, lie if they wanted certain jobs and even lie if they wanted to keep their jobs? It was, after all, legal for an employer to sack someone simply because they had discovered that that person was gay. Anyone could refuse to rent a house to a gay person. A gay couple could be arrested if they shared a hotel room, because the law did not recognise hotel rooms as private spaces. Perhaps most horrifyingly of all—here we come to the crux of today’s debate—a 21-year-old man who slept with his 20-year-old boyfriend could be arrested and tried, convicted and sentenced for under-age sex.

As a young journalist I made a film about how the law discriminated against gay men; in fact, I confess that it was I who took Edwina Currie to Amsterdam, at a time when she was not especially interested in this subject, as I wanted to confront her with the full horrors of gay law reform and equality. She came back a changed character—perhaps it was a couple of the clubs I took her to—determined to reform the law, because she had seen the way that gay law reform could work in practice.

In that film, I interviewed military personnel with exemplary records who had been followed home by the military police as they were determined to investigate a tip off that the soldier, Air Force man or naval officer concerned was living privately with a same-sex partner. When interviewed those personnel could be disciplined if they lied, but of course they could be and were sacked if they told the truth—damned whatever choice they made.

It was not until the 1990s that the European Court—yes, the great Satan itself—overturned the services ban in the teeth of military opposition. Military men hit the airwaves to predict the collapse of the British Navy, where such behaviour had previously never been known; Nelson, it seems, had never been kissed. Across the pond, Colin Powell was shamefully arguing the same tosh, in his case claiming that straight soldiers would never share a shower with gay soldiers if they knew their true nature. Much better to hide and share the shower, if we follow Mr Powell’s logic; I do not.

In my documentary I interviewed gay men who had been entrapped by so-called pretty policemen. I also interviewed Chief Constable Anderton of Greater Manchester, beloved of the tabloids as “God’s copper”, with a bushy black beard of biblical proportions. He sat at his desk and defended the practice of sending out attractive young male police officers who would give gay men the eye; if the gay man responded, he would be arrested and his life would be ruined. Since announcing the Bill, I have had letters from people who have told me of their exact experience of being entrapped by police officers and how it ruined their life. This entrapment was a police priority in one of the country’s biggest cities in the 1990s. It is hard to fathom, because it was a disgrace. Gay men were not free at home or at work. They were not protected by law. They were under sustained attack by the law.

I felt myself lucky. I had supportive friends, a loving family and a good job. I came out, and have never regretted doing so for a moment. And goodness knows, I am now a member of the gayest party in this place. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] Just look at them.

[Roger Mullin (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP)]

It’s not unanimous! [Laughter.]

[John Nicolson]

I think a heterosexual has just come out of the closet.

Our very gayness has made Westminster the gayest Parliament in the world. [Interruption.] I am just looking at the gentleman in the wig and wondering how he is reacting. [Interruption.] He’s left, in fact.

I will never forget the men in the documentary I presented for the BBC, and their ruined lives—lives scarred by a bitter sense of injustice. When I came top of the ballot, I saw a golden opportunity. Society has moved on. We are now horrified by the inequalities of the past. We cringe when we read the homophobic rantings of some of our predecessors in this place. We believe that gay service personnel should serve, that being gay should be no bar to a career in the diplomatic service or any other service, that gay couples should be able to share a bed in a hotel, that gay kids should not be harassed and bullied at school, that chief constables should not send out officers to flirt with and entrap citizens, and that the age of consent should be equal. Looking across the House, I know that there is consensus about that in this place just as there is in society.

We do not want any of these prejudices for our future. But what about those living with unfair convictions from our past—how do we address their grievances and the injustices that they suffered? I detailed some of the cases that I covered for my documentary, and I am sure that all of us, as diligent MPs, have had mail from people who have found themselves in these circumstances. What about the men of 21 who had a boyfriend of 20 and as a result found themselves arrested, tried and convicted for under-age sex—just think about what it means to have that on your record—with a man who was perhaps only a few months younger than they were? These are people who were in a consensual relationship with a contemporary. That contemporary was old enough to serve in the military, drive a car and have a child of four legally, but was regarded by the homophobic laws of the time as a 20-year-old child unable to give consent. Those 21-year-olds have then had to endure, perhaps for decades, an unfair criminal conviction for under-age sex that may have blighted their lives.

Stonewall, the extraordinary gay rights organisation that has led the national debate on gay law reform, had a solution: the Turing Bill, named after the wartime code-breaking hero Alan Turing. Mr Turing may have been hailed by Churchill, but that did not prevent him from being charged as a homosexual and being chemically castrated. He committed suicide as a result. In his honour, Stonewall wants all gay men living with convictions for crimes that are no longer on the statute book to be pardoned. I could not think of a more noble Bill to pilot through Parliament. With old friends from all parts of the House, I felt that the Bill would attract all-party support, which indeed it has; I thank those who have supported it.

When I was approached by the Tory Whips and asked whether I would take on the Bill I was delighted to do so. The Conservative Whips asked me for a meeting and promised that if I took up the Turing Bill there would be—and I quote them exactly—

“no tricks and no games from our side.”

I felt as if I was in an episode of “House of Cards”. The right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), a principled long-term campaigner for law reform, was the Justice Secretary at the time. He promised me the full support of the Justice Department.

I have worked closely with Stonewall on the Bill. Let me tell the House what the Bill does and does not do. It provides a blanket pardon for any gay man convicted of a crime that is no longer a crime. The meaning of that is patently obvious. If the crime for which someone was convicted is still a crime, by definition they are not pardoned. Let no one be confused about that.

The aim of this simple measure is, I hope, obvious. The pardon confers no immediate advantage except this: it will, I hope, bring closure to those men who have had to thole monstrous, unfair criminal convictions for decades. They may have had to hide their conviction from family or friends; it may have prevented them from applying for a job. With my Turing Bill they get a pardon and so belated justice and the knowledge that society has acknowledged that a great wrong was committed against them.

I believe that the vast majority of gay men with convictions will be satisfied with this anonymous, private triumph, but there may be some who want something more—who feel that they should not be offered a pardon for something that was never wrong in the first place. For those men I offer an additional option, should they choose it: they will be able to have their name expunged from the records. However—and this is important, as many Members have raised the point with me—the records are often imprecise. Often there were “catch-all” arrests where the police did not specify the detail. So where the records are imprecise and where it is unclear whether the under-age party was 20, 19, 18, 17, 16—or, crucially 15 or younger—the onus will be on the applicant to prove the age of his partner at the time of the arrest.

As a result, some men might not be able to have their records expunged because they are unable to provide the necessary proof, even though their then partner was over today’s age of consent—and I recognise that that will be deeply frustrating for them. However, this provision absolutely satisfies the concerns raised that we must be rigorous in ensuring that only those who have convictions for crimes not now on the statute book benefit from these measures. All the legal advice I have taken leaves me satisfied that this Bill absolutely addresses that concern and is as watertight as it is possible to be under the circumstances.

Stonewall believes that only small numbers of men will avail themselves of this provision—the second provision of my Bill. Many of the men affected are old, and these matters are far in their past and perhaps a secret. The requirements I am imposing would be time-consuming and perhaps distressing for them to satisfy. I believe and Stonewall believes that they will be satisfied with my automatic pardon. They will not seek to have the details expunged manually from their record.

If you will forgive me, Mr Speaker, I want to come back to the

“no tricks and no games”

promise. SNP Members may not be planning to stay in this House for very long, but other Members are passionate about Westminster and want Westminster to succeed, so surely nothing we do procedurally should bring this House into disrepute, when we know that certain words such as “filibuster” shock and horrify ordinary members of the public who think such things are appalling.

Oral Answers to Questions

Roger Mullin Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Dinenage]

The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. This is exactly why we have set about shutting Holloway, an estate in which brilliant work is undertaken by some exceptional people despite the constraints of the building that they are in. We hope that by offering a much better environment we will be able to improve outcomes.

[Roger Mullin (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP)]

23. In 2015, the Prison Reform Trust published research suggesting that 32% of women prisoners were borderline learning disabled, compared with 24% of males. Does the Minister agree that community sentencing such as that advocated in Scotland would be more appropriate than prison for such women?

[Caroline Dinenage]

So many of the women who end up in our prisons represent a failure of society to intervene and address the causes of their offending behaviour or other issues in their lives. The whole-system approach that we are piloting in England and Wales will enable us to intervene earlier to put in place the right interventions and support that will enable us to do just that.

State Pension Age (Women)

Roger Mullin Excerpts

Thursday 7th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Roger Mullin (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP)]

Happy new year, Madam Deputy Speaker, although the people I really hope have a happy one are the women who have been suffering under this injustice for too long.

On 20 June 2011, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions advised MPs during a debate on the Pensions Act 2011 that he would be considering “transitional arrangements” to provide assistance to the worst-affected women, yet later that year, only completely inadequate transitional arrangements were accepted. In the same 2011 debate, the Hansard record reveals that although concern was expressed by many Members, the extent of the problems, not least the lack of effective communications, support and the transition, was not as well understood as, thanks to the WASPI ladies, it is today.

Today gives us an opportunity to begin to set the record straight and to give the Government the chance to right a wrong. Much more recently, on 24 January 2014, Ros Altmann, now the ennobled Baroness who has become the pensions Minister wrote:

“Women in their late fifties or more today have been the most disadvantaged by the UK pension system”,

and she also pointed out:

“For years, women have been the second class citizens in both state and private pensions. This particularly affects women already in their late 50s...Women…typically…earn less than men when they are working, once again leaving them with less chance to save for a pension and leaving them with lower state pensions as they lose out on the earnings-related element of the system.”

Let us recall, too, that women born in the 1950s did not have the same breadth of employment opportunity as men. In the early years of employment, it was still legal to ban women from joining private pension schemes if they married or worked part time. Women were encouraged to pay the married women’s stamp, which meant they accrued no state pension rights at all, and the state pension system did not credit them if they worked full time raising a family. In other words, the pension system was designed by men, for men.

Thousands of women are now struggling to fill the gap before they have access to their state pension, and no adequate impact assessment has been undertaken by the Government. They have simply left these women to get on with it. Some are planning to use up what savings they have, and others who may have very small private pension pots are choosing to pull them all down to help fill a gap that is the creation of this Government. The Government must act.

State Pension Age Equalisation

Roger Mullin Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd December 2015 Westminster Hall

[Barbara Keeley]

Indeed, but there is the very important question of the impact on women now—millions of women, many of them living in real financial hardship. We must learn lessons for the future, but we also have to think of the people who are affected now.

[Roger Mullin (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on raising this incredibly important matter. Does she agree that actually a political choice has been made? That political choice is that it is the women who will have to carry the entire burden of arranging their own transitional arrangements. For example, she mentioned that a comparatively small number of these women might have small pension pots. I have already had a number of women say to me that what they will do is use their pension freedoms to wholly draw down their pension, compromising their long-term future so that they can put in place their own transitional arrangements. That cannot be right.

[Barbara Keeley]

The hon. Gentleman is quite right and I will come on to cases of how people are managing, citing my constituents and other people I have heard from.

Some of the women affected have been hit twice: by the original proposals in 1995 and by the acceleration of the changes through the Pensions Act 2011. Now they are angry and feel that they are bearing a disproportionate burden, as the hon. Gentleman has just said.

The acceleration of the changes to the state pension age can mean that women born just months apart, and who were possibly in the same class group at school, receive their state pension at very different ages. In some cases, a one-year difference in date of birth can mean a woman will receive her state pension three and a half years later than other women. The campaign group Women Against State Pension Inequality tells me that it is not campaigning against the equalisation of the pension age in itself; I think hon. Members will understand that that equalisation was going to happen. It is opposed to the way the changes have been enacted and to the lack of transitional protection for the women born in the 1950s who are hit hardest by the changes.

The women affected put their faith in a state pension system into which most of them had paid all their working lives. They expected that they would be treated fairly and that they would be told about major changes with sufficient notice. However, most of them were given short notice of these changes and some of them have received no information at all. The women affected believe that the Government have failed in their duty of care by not taking reasonable steps to ensure that they were notified individually and in a timely way. They have been left with inadequate time to plan for a major change to their financial circumstances, which has caused great uncertainty and worry for those who have been planning for retirement.

A number of constituents have given me examples that show the significant impact these changes are having on their lives. One of them has worked for more than 44 years and raised two children. She suffers with osteoarthritis. She tells me she that she suffered the indignity of having to attend the jobcentre, only to be told that she was entitled to just six months’ jobseeker’s allowance. Now she is unable to find work and has to use her hard-earned savings, which is a similar point to the one that the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Roger Mullin) made earlier. My constituent told me:

“I must watch my savings dwindle on living costs rather than enjoyment, I wish I had not bothered being frugal all my life, as by the time I get my pension I will be broke or dead.”

Another constituent, Christine, is 61 and has worked since she was 15. She has osteoarthritis in both knees and has had a knee replacement. She cannot apply for her pension until 2019 and she told me:

“I am one of those women you would say is ‘old school’. Worked hard all my life, no maternity leave, no help with child care, just got on with it. Carrying on working thinking you will retire at 60, but since then my retirement age has changed 3 times. There is no guarantee it will not change again. I will probably be dead before I am able to retire.”

Another told me:

“At the age of 61, I find myself unemployed…If the Government had not moved the goalposts, I would have been able to retire last year. How are you supposed to live on £75 a week?”

She tells me that she has a mortgage and her outgoings are double the size of her income.

A constituent of a colleague told me that she was born in 1954, which is similar to the case already raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq), and that she was given only two years’ notice of the changes to state pension age. She is supported by her husband now, as she has no income of her own. She suffers mental ill health and has been unable to cope with the assessment process for employment and support allowance.

Case after case that I have been told about show how many women in their early 60s have health problems that stop them working, or that they need to give up work to care for someone else.

In an article on the gender gap in pensions, the Fawcett Society points out that the Chancellor appears to be delighted with the savings he made from his policy on state pension age equalisation, despite the really negative effects on women born in the 1950s, which I have been outlining. Speaking of the Government’s changes at the Global Investment Conference 2013, he said:

“These changes…the savings dwarf almost everything else you do, I mean they are absolutely enormous savings. You’re not necessarily reducing the entitlement of people who are retired, you’re just increasing the age at which that retirement entitlement kicks in”.