By David Brooks, Technical Director at Broadstone
The second was a back-bench debate on state pension age for women in the House of Commons. These debates are non-binding on the Government but are a good way to raise the profile of a particular issue. The debate was brought to the House by the “baby of the House” and the MP for Renfrewshire and Paisley South, Mhari Black. At 21 you may be mistaken for seeing her as naïve but she is old beyond her years and conducted herself in an excellent manner, explaining well the intricacies of the problem and coping with other MPs with humour and good nature. I don’t know of anyone who did not see her performance and was not impressed. I think we should stop making allowances for her age and note she has the makings of an excellent MP.
Since we last discussed the WASPI ladies (and gentlemen who support them) they have mounted quite a concerted campaign on social media primarily hounding the Minister of State for Pensions Ros Altmann. Some of the communication has been unseemly and bordering on offensive, but with a wide range of followers it is nigh on impossible for the WASPI hierarchy to police anyone wishing to use the pressure group’s umbrella to “troll” and abuse. However, the abuse does little to move the argument forward and does much to obfuscate and confuse. It also raises hackles of other commentators and should stop.
This has created a confusion in the WASPI position. With the best will in the world it isn’t entirely clear what they want to happen. Commentators that have asked for a clear understanding of what solution they want rarely seem to get a clear answer. They are against inequality but appear to want the continuation of an inequality in their case, because it makes them better off: namely compensation for the period between their old State Pension Age (SPA) and the new one. However, in the House of Commons it was stated that no-one is against the equalisation of SPA but that the complaint concerns the lack of communication these women had (those born between 6 April 1953 and 5 January 1954).
The communication issue has now become the main focus of the debate. Were these women properly told of the changes to their SPA? Were they told but they didn’t notice? Should there be some personal responsibility to be aware of changes? It has even come down to arguments around how much press coverage there was around the issue and should these ladies have noticed.
The debate was won by the opposition – 158-0. The victory was likely but the response from the Government (delivered in the House by a faltering and unclear Work and Pensions Minister Shailesh Vara, but not Ros as she isn’t an MP) was clear. The apparent abstention from the handful of their MPs that attended the debate shows the Government’s line so far, that the changes were debated in 2010, that they save a lot of money and it could have been worse (the hike in SPA was delayed six months). The Government appears intransigent. This has also been Ros’ mantra to date, that to change the current position is impossible and the money isn’t available. It has been pointed out by others that this contrasts unfavourably with her opinion when she was a lobbyist (she campaigned with precursors of the WASPI group).
However, in the melee the previous pensions minister Steve Webb has also been making comments. He appears to be taking the blame for not communicating the changes to the affected women and admitted that the Government made a bad decision when they did so, although much of the blame is passed on to his civil servants and their briefings.
So that debate has finally whittled down the crux of the complaint. These women were not told of the initial rise nor subsequent increases by the Government. Opinion is split on whether the press covered this effectively.
It would seem one’s view must now rest on to what extent they believe people should take personal responsibility for their own pension – be that private or state pension. The Government is not in the habit of publicising individually every benefit change that is made to all and sundry. However, while the original change in 1995 should have been noticed, the accelerations made by the coalition now seem draconian and arbitrary. It seems likely that any solution will be a review of this timetable. I am not sure whether this will be enough for the WASPI women.
This debate will run and run with a second Westminster debate timetabled for 1 February 2016. Can the Government continue ignoring them or will the Government prepare a bottle of sugary water to rid itself of the pesky WASPIs once and for all?
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