State Pension Age: Women Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Work and Pensions
Sharon Hodgson
Main Page: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Gateshead South)Department Debates - View all Sharon Hodgson's debates with the Department for Work and Pensions
(7 years, 8 months ago)
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Jessica Morden
I thank my hon. Friend for that point. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) said, clearly the Government have failed to listen over successive years when the issue has been raised. As other hon. Members have mentioned, there has been debate after debate, and question after question.
The women affected in my constituency are not just angry but anxious and worried, because they face real financial insecurity. I will focus on that. Some 3,100 women are affected in Newport East, and 135,000 are affected in Wales. Many have been hit particularly hard, with significant changes to their state pension age and, as was mentioned earlier, a lack of appropriate notification.
Last week, a new constituent—I very much welcome new constituents—contacted me. Her story illustrates the financial insecurity facing many people. She had to sell her long-term family home in Bristol and move away from her children, parents and friends in order to make ends meet and to tide her over until she is 66. This is a woman who, as a single parent, received no support when her children were small. She worked all her life and then discovered, far too late in the day, that she will have to survive for longer. She is recovering from breast cancer but does not feel able to work at the moment, and she is trying to navigate the disability benefits system. This is a woman who explained to me how she would ring the DWP every single year when she was working to check that she had paid enough contributions to get her full pension at 60. In her words:
“This is not the retirement I planned at all—I live in a constant state of worry due to the cancer and financial pressures. The goal posts have been moved twice”.
She said that this is surely discrimination against women at its worst.
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making an important point. Is she as surprised as I am that there are no Government Back Benchers here? Could that be because there are no WASPI women in their constituencies?
Jessica Morden
The constituent I speak of moved, in fact, from a constituency where she was represented by—
Jessica Morden
Or maybe not in that case, but I will leave that there.
Another constituent explained to me the impact of her pension date being deferred for the second time with little time to make compensatory arrangements. She has worked for 45 years and paid her way, and the changes to the pension age, which mean that she is not in receipt of her state pension at 60, will deny her more than £38,000. She, too, has cancer and is considering whether she has to give up work.