State Pension Age for Women Debate
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Stephen Hepburn
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State Pension Age for Women
Stephen Hepburn Excerpts(7 years, 5 months ago)
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Grahame Morris
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that intervention, and I hope that the Minister is taking due note of it. When a large delegation of women adversely affected by the changes came to see me, I checked the HMRC website, and a lot of the information is out of date, even on the number of people affected. I think that 2.4 million was the number originally quoted, but it is now generally accepted that the number is 3.5 million.
Mr Hepburn
My hon. Friend is very generous. Just to place the numbers in context, is he aware that more than 4,000 women in the Jarrow constituency alone have been robbed of their thoughts of a happy retirement? That has been stolen from them by a Tory Government, who are more willing to give a £1 billion bung to the DUP to save their necks in government than they are to look after people who have worked for a lifetime just to be happy in retirement.
Grahame Morris
Absolutely. There is a moral argument and a factual argument. I hope the Minister and his advisers will go away and reflect on the debates that have taken place—not just this debate in Westminster Hall, but the number of debates in the previous Parliament where the arguments were soundly put.
I find it difficult to understand how in any other circumstances the House would not consider this issue of inadequate notice—or, indeed, no notice—to be a case of maladministration. Various Members have raised that issue. Had any other public body failed in such a way, whether that was a Government agency or local government, there would rightly be demands for support and compensation for those affected. Those are legitimate demands, and I understand that they have been made collectively on behalf of the Women Against State Pension Inequality Campaign in a joint letter to the Department. I hope the Minister will comment on that.
The decision to accelerate the increases in the state pension further compounded the failings, with an impact on the same cohort that had already been failed by the 1995 Act. Age UK research found that some of the people affected, who had not been aware of the 1995 legislation, now face waits of up to six years more than they had been expecting before they can access their pension.