Oral Answers to Questions

Steve McCabe Excerpts

Wednesday 29th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

Mr Speaker, you and the House will be aware that I can speak only on behalf of the Government. I can assure my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Ms Dorries) that Bangladesh remains an important human rights priority area for the Foreign Office and that we continue to raise allegations of enforced disappearances at all levels of the Government of Bangladesh. I think I should stop there.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

Q4. At the present rate of progress, it will take the three officials at the First Secretary’s old Department more than 70 years to investigate the claims of around 4,500 WASPI women who are being deprived of their state pension. I know that this Government are slow, but is this not adding insult to injury?

[Damian Green]

The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the Government committed a sum of more than £1 billion to ensure that no one’s pension would be delayed more than 18 months from the original period. I am sure that he also, as a reasonable man, recognises that, with increasing longevity, it is inevitable that the pension age will rise. That is what this Government are doing, and by next year pension inequality will have been removed. We will hit 65 for both sexes next year, and that means that we will then have an equal pension system.