Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of compensating women who have reached state pension age for losses caused by changes introduced in the Pension Acts 1995 and 2011 to their state pensions.

The Government will not be revisiting the State Pension age arrangements for women affected by the Pensions Act 1995 and Pensions Act 2011. These women will receive their State Pension either at the same age as men or earlier as we remove the current inequality, as set out in the 1995 & 2011 Acts. A concession was made prior to the passing of the 2011 Act which reduced the delay that anyone would experience in claiming their State Pension, relative to the previous timetable, to 18 months. This concession benefited almost a quarter of a million women, who would otherwise have experienced delays of up to two years. A similar number of men also benefited from a reduced increase, and the concession was worth £1.1 billion in total.

It is worth noting that the average woman who reached SPa post 2015 gets a higher state pension income over her lifetime than an average woman reaching SPa at any point before. Also, over a lifetime, the average woman who reached State Pension age in 2015 will still receive more than the average man in spite of the rise in women’s state pension age. Any amendment to the current legislation which creates a new inequality between men and women would unquestionably be highly dubious as a matter of law.