Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Steve Webb and Fiona Mactaggart

Monday 1st September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

Why does “Fuller Working Lives” not recognise the difference in the experience of older women workers and older men workers? Older women are about four times as likely to be carers and the biggest pay gap is between women and men over 50. What are the Government doing about that, apart from appointing Ros Altmann?

[Steve Webb]

I wonder whether the hon. Lady has read the document, given that one of the key groups on which we focus is carers. We specifically state in the document that carers face particular barriers in the labour market and that is why we need more flexible employment, such as our extension of the right to request flexible employment to all workers as of this year.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Steve Webb and Fiona Mactaggart

Thursday 28th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Steve Webb]

My hon. Friend is right. One of the lasting legacies of this coalition will be that, after years of its being talked about, we finally abolished age discrimination in the workplace. To give him an example, research has found that McDonald’s restaurants that employ people over 60 have, on average, far higher customer satisfaction than those that do not.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

Is the Minister aware that the experiences of men and women who work beyond retirement age are very different? Nearly two thirds of those who work beyond retirement age are women, and of those most—nearly two thirds—work in lower-skilled jobs, whereas, in contrast, the smaller group of men are working in higher-skilled jobs. What is he going to do about dealing with the poverty of women in old age?

[Steve Webb]

The hon. Lady is right. Successive Governments have failed to deliver an adequate pension to women. That is why we are reforming the state pension, as the Prime Minister confirmed on Monday, to deliver a pension that is simple, decent and, in particular, treats women fairly for the first time.

State Pension Age (Women)

Debate between Steve Webb and Fiona Mactaggart

Wednesday 11th May 2011 Westminster Hall

[Steve Webb]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising the position of women in the pension system. Assuming that some of the pension reform proposals in the Green Paper that we published last month go ahead, for example the single flat-rate decent state pension, the group of women most affected by this change would be the first group of women to benefit, and potentially very substantially. At the moment, women draw a state pension of £40 a week, on average, less than men, but under the single-tier pension proposal, which I have been very involved in introducing, many women would be the main beneficiaries.

Various Members have raised the important issue of women whose pension rights have been hampered by time spent bringing up children or caring for relatives, and under the single-tier pension proposal a year spent at home with children or a relative will be worth just as much to a state pension as a year spent running a FTSE 100 company. So much do I take the view—in government as I did in opposition—that the work that men and women do, whether paid work or bringing up a family, is of equal value, that for the first time we are proposing that that be manifest in the pension system, and that will be transformative, particularly for women.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

Will the Minister agree to publish figures? I am interested in what effect the single-tier pension will have on women, and I am finding it difficult to work out how many women will be affected by the abolition of the state second pension and the cost of their different contributions. I am unaware of any figures working out how many women and men will be affected by the change respectively. I am not as sanguine as he is that all women will benefit. There are many women whose contributions to the state second pension are important to their retirement.

[Steve Webb]

On how the proposed single-tier pension will work, it is a Green Paper with options, so the sort of detailed figures for which the hon. Lady asks will be produced when we have identified which of the two options we will go for and refined the proposition. That information will be made available when the proposition is refined further.

To clarify, at the moment, many women in the age cohort that we have been discussing will have spent time at home with their children before the state second pension was introduced. Whereas the state second pension offers protection for time at home with children, the state earnings-related pension scheme did not. That set of women is approaching pension age. People have accused me of moving the goalposts. I am indeed moving the goalposts for those women, but in their direction. They will draw a state pension—yes, later, but for an average of more than 20 years. Compared with when we first started debating the changes in state pension age last summer, that is a significant difference.