State Retirement Pensions: Females

(asked on 18th June 2019) - View Source

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will publish a response to Early Day Motion 2390, Pensions for women born in the 1950s.


Answered by
Guy Opperman Portrait
Guy Opperman
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
This question was answered on 24th June 2019

The approach of Labour, Conservative and the Coalition governments for the last 24 years since the 1995 pensions Act is the same. This Government’s position on the changes to State Pension age (SPa) remains clear and consistent.

We have considered the alternative options offered by stakeholders and found there are substantial practical, financial and legal problems to all alternative options offered by stakeholders so far to mitigate the impact on those affected. During the passage of the 2011 Act, the Government listened to the concerns of those affected and subsequently introduced a concession worth £1.1 billion in order to limit the impact on those women who would be most affected by the changes.

In the years after the 1995 legislation, equalisation was frequently reported in the media and debated at length in Parliament. The changes were communicated in a variety of ways, for example with leaflets, extensive advertising campaigns were carried out and later individual letters were posted out. Throughout this period, the Department has also provided individuals with their most up-to-date State Pension age when they have requested a Pension statement. Between April 2000 and the end of April 2019, the Department provided more than 28 million personalised State Pension statements to people who requested them (either online or by telephone or post). We continue to encourage people to request a personalised State Pension Statement as part of our on-going communications.

This matter has been comprehensively debated on many occasions in Parliament, and any amendment to the current legislation which creates a new inequality between men and women would be highly dubious as a matter of law. The Government has no plans to publish a response to EDM 2390.

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