State Pension Age (Women)

Gordon Marsden Excerpts

Thursday 7th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Barbara Keeley]

I do agree with my hon. Friend and I thank him for the work he has done on this matter since that Second Reading debate. These changes are having a disproportionate impact on my constituents and on his, and I have heard from WASPI campaigners who are also badly affected. As we have heard, many have health problems that stop them working and others have given up work to care. One of my constituents affected by the changes has worked for more than 44 years and has raised two children. She suffers with osteoarthritis and she tells me that she suffered the indignity of having to attend the jobcentre, where she was told that she was only entitled to six months’ jobseeker's allowance. Unable to find work, she has to use her hard-earned savings. She has said:

“I must watch my savings dwindle on living costs rather than enjoyment, I wish I had not bothered being frugal all my life, as by the time I get my pension I will be broke or dead.”

[Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the sterling work that my hon. Friend and others have done on this campaign. Does she agree that there is a particular problem here for women in places such as Blackpool who have only been able to work part-time for a long period and are nevertheless having to take on some of the carer and other issues that people have described?

[Barbara Keeley]

Before the 1995 Act changes, the independent Social Security Advisory Committee said that savings made on raising the state pension age should be spent on the most vulnerable groups, with help specifically for low-paid women, women returning to work and carers. That advice was not followed. Recently, a court in the Netherlands ruled that raising the state pension age could be considered a breach of the European convention on human rights. A woman in her 60s appealed against a two-year increase in her pension age because it created an “individual and excessive burden” on her. The court found in her favour. It is welcome that some Conservative Members who voted for the acceleration of the state pension age in 2011 are now supporting the WASPI campaign. However, other Conservative Members are blaming European legislation for the shabby treatment of the pensions of 1950s-born women—but the facts are against them.

When the Minister answered the debate on 2 December, he said:

“Equalisation was necessary to meet the UK’s obligations under EU law to eliminate gender inequalities in social security provision.”—[Official Report, 2 December 2015; Vol. 603, c. 145WH.]

The same point has been made to WASPI campaigners in replies from Conservative MPs. However, research done by the House of Commons Library and my own research show that that is not the case. EU law allows countries to have differences in their state pension age, and it also allows lengthy transitional arrangements to be made.

Library research notes that directive 79/7/EEC requires

“the progressive implementation of the principle of equal treatment for men and women in matters of social security.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Chloe Smith]

No, the hon. Lady is mishearing me. I am citing directly from constituents. I will ensure that the Official Report reflects my citations. Let me be absolutely clear. I do not know whether the woman in question received the letter; how could I possibly know that? I know what my constituents tell me. I look forward to the Minister’s explanation of what has happened historically. I understand the point made by the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mhairi Black) who opened the debate that the past is the past and that there is only a certain amount that we can do if we are looking back at a problem that has its roots in 1995.

Let me now explain what I am looking for as we move forward. I have already listed a set of principles that we could apply. The first is that we should protect those who can no longer work. Secondly, we should provide the right support for those who can work. Thirdly, we should maintain sound public finances, as to fail to do so hurts every single person in the economy. Fourthly, we should of course promote better communications to enable people to plan. That is my main message to Ministers today.

Let me dwell on the point of equalisation. Earlier in the debate, there was a hubbub of people saying, “Yes, we all agree on equalisation.” Let me provide a few figures on why we need to do that. When the state pension age was first set at 65 in 1926, male life expectancy at birth was 64 compared with 89 today. Indeed, if the state pension age had risen in line with the average life expectancy at 65 since 1926, it would now be at least 75. We have a significant gap that we need to make up. Indeed, if we looked even further back in the history books, we would see that when the state pension was set in 1908, the average life expectancy was 41. Members can see very clearly the difference with which we have to deal. Lord Turner’s report on pensions, commissioned by the previous Government, acknowledged that a more generous state pension had to be funded by an increase in the pension age.

Let us also make sure that we are aware of the costs. I understand that there would be costs to the tune of £30 billion to return to the 1995 timetable. Let us compare that with a few other things, simply so that we have a well informed debate. The 2015-16 spending figures, as shown in the July Budget, include expenditure of £28 billion on housing and the environment and £34 billion on public order or safety. All that we spend on housing or on public order and safety is broadly equivalent to the sum we are talking about today.

[Mr Marsden]

Of course comparative statistics are extremely important, but does the hon. Lady not recognise the reasonableness of the WASPI campaign, particularly on the issue of pension credit entitlements, which has been raised today? As she will know as a constituency MP, those are often key to what people receive.

[Chloe Smith]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point; I do recognise the grounds of the campaign. As I hope I have made clear with remarks from my constituents, I recognise the importance of the issue for every single person affected. I will leave it to the Minister to reply to the hon. Gentleman specifically about pension credits, but let me give him one further example of what £30 billion can buy. It can buy some of the debt interest on his party’s Government’s financial catastrophe, on which we have to spend £36 billion in this financial year.

I will conclude, because I have only a few minutes left and I have already taken several interventions. We have to listen carefully to such a comprehensive and well informed campaign, and I am pleased that we are doing that today. I want my constituents’ concerns, which I have given prominence in my comments, to be balanced with everything else that the Government have to do. I strongly sympathise with the campaign, and in 2011 I was active in representing my constituents’ views to the then Pensions Minister to mitigate the two-year delay in about a quarter of a million women receiving their pension. My call today is for the Government to communicate considerably better than has been done to date. It seems to me that we cannot go back, and equalisation has to mean equalisation. We cannot delay it forever or duck it. We need to maintain the principles that I have set out and communicate better.