Women’s State Pension Age Communication: PHSO Report

Vikki Slade Excerpts

Tuesday 17th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Liz Kendall]

I am sure that there could be a vote in the Scottish Parliament if the SNP Government decided to do that.

[Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

I am shocked and staggered that the Secretary of State has made this decision in the week before Christmas—“Bah humbug,” springs to mind. She has talked several times about making sure people get due notice in the future. Does the Secretary of State have plans to increase the pension age further?

[Liz Kendall]

No. What I am saying is that we have to be able to give people sufficient notice in future. That was at the heart of the problem with the former Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition’s decision to accelerate the increase in the state pension age, which caused so much anger among many people. We campaigned against that, including in the 2019 election in which we proposed compensation, but we lost that election, and the courts have since ruled that that decision was legal. That is why the ombudsman’s report is not about that decision, but about how changes were communicated. We will learn all the lessons from that maladministration to make sure it does not happen in future.