Transitional State Pension Arrangements for Women

With respect, I did not have an opportunity because I was not here at the time. The hon. Gentlema...

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

I will make some progress if I may, and then I will give way.

These things started back in ...

Will the hon. Gentleman accept that, in 2004, the Work and Pensions Committee found that three qu...

I am pleased to swap stories about what people knew at the time, because the truth is that the qu...

I will quote one of those letters when I have given way to my hon. Friends.

Constituents have written to me saying that they have been at their current address for the last ...

That is an extremely common experience for MPs, because the letters sent out in 1995 by the then ...

I have lost count of the number of constituents who have contacted me to say that they had absolu...

It is wrong, it is insulting, and it compounds the more fundamental insult that women who, by and...

I am going to be unusually helpful to the Opposition spokesman. I am one of these women. I have n...

I cannot believe for a minute that the hon. Lady is old enough to be one of the women concerned. ...

Does my hon. Friend recognise that there are a lot of women like Jayne Manners in my constituency...

That is the case for thousands of women across this country. That is why this is more than a smal...

My hon. Friend is making a very good speech. Increasing numbers of women in my constituency have ...

My hon. Friend is of course entirely right. He will know, because he was part of the previous Lab...

A total of 4,465 women in my constituency are going to be affected by this. Does my hon. Friend a...

Of course it has, because historical inequalities existed then and persist now. The gender pay ga...

Does my hon. Friend agree that this generation of women are doubly disadvantaged, because many we...

My hon. Friend spoke with great eloquence in the recent Westminster Hall debate after a petition ...

I would like to challenge the figure that was quoted by a Member on the Government Benches. The O...

The hon. Lady is entirely right. Even if 40% of women were unaware, that is 40% too many. As I sa...

My hon. Friend is about to come on to the injustice of the 2011 Act. Is not the real issue not on...

This House and Government Members would do well to heed the words of my hon. Friend, because, alo...

I support the motion, because I support the WASPI women and I support transitional arrangements, ...

I am sorry if I am bruising the hon. Gentleman’s feelings with my remarks. I am pleased that he h...

This is the third opportunity we have had to debate this important matter in the Chamber and West...

Why do they not do so? The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions occasionally comes to the Cha...

One of the 4,100 women in my constituency affected by the changes recently told me that throughou...

My hon. Friend is entirely right. Women have suffered a million and one other injustices in the w...

Will the hon. Gentleman take this opportunity to acknowledge the serious injustice suffered by wo...

It is no surprise that the hon. Lady, who speaks with great erudition, has highlighted yet anothe...

The case that my hon. Friend is making is absolutely right. The point is that Governments, on occ...

The Government could do so, and the Minister has five minutes or so to come up with what he wants...

The six points that my hon. Friend has just raised would be helpful to the 3,450 women in my cons...

All six of them?

All six points, yes. They would be important for the woman who wrote to me this morning to say th...

My hon. Friend speaks with passion and knowledge about the 4,000-odd women in his constituency wh...

Constituents such as Mrs Cox in my constituency do not object to the principle of equalisation, b...

I expect that the Secretary of State is out in Europe somewhere right now blaming the European Un...

I am going to make a little more progress, and then I will give way. The truth is that we have ha...

My hon. Friend mentions the Budget. Does he agree that, given the corporation tax cuts and the cu...

At the last Budget, the Chancellor happened to find £27 billion extra in tax revenues, which was ...

Will my hon. Friend give way?

I give way to the doughty campaigner from Eccles.

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way at this point because I want to make sure tha...

Poland has realised that it had moved too fast. France has done the same, as has Germany. Countri...

The hon. Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith) has just made a speech more of politics than of subst...

I wish to make a little progress.

rose—

I will give way, but I first wish to make a little progress.

Hon. Members will be aware tha...

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way, because I wanted to point out to him that the audie...

As far as the hon. Lady’s question—or her speech, which had a question at the end of it—is concer...

Was the Minister struck, as I was, by the fact that the shadow Secretary of State, during the 30 ...

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The shadow Secretary of State’s speech was full of bluster an...

The Minister is speaking as though we did nothing to bring this issue to the Government’s attenti...

I will come on to the debate we had in 2011 later in my speech. If the hon. Lady wants to talk ab...

The Minister says that the Labour Government did limited work. May I point out that, following a ...

If the hon. Gentleman is so proud of what the Labour Government did, why does he stand up to comp...

When it comes to equalisation, how much leeway do the UK Government have under EU law?

EU law does require us to equalise pension ages. Later in my speech, I will mention countries tha...

The hon. Gentleman ought to recognise that although EU law requires the equalisation of pension a...

I will come to transitional arrangements a little later on.

There are women in Northumberland who are likely to be in serious financial difficulty as a resul...

Ministers are always pleased to have meetings with colleagues, and I am more than happy to meet m...

I want to make some progress, because I am still on my first page.

Will the Minister give way?

I will give way, but then I want to make some progress.

My hon. Friend is saying some fair things about the Opposition and they do not like it. Will he t...

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his comments. If I am allowed to make some progress, I will t...

Will the Minister give way?

I will give way later, but I wish to make some progress.

There has been much debate about t...

Nobody’s asking for that.

Yes, there are many people, including people in WASPI, who want to unravel the 1995 reforms. It i...

Will the Minister give way?

I will give way in a moment, but I wish to continue.

If we unravel the 1995 pension reforms...

The Minister repeats the calumny that the WASPI women are saying, “Do not equalise pensions, and ...

I am simply speaking from my personal experience of speaking to women. There are women who have s...

When the hon. Gentleman says that £30 billion was saved as a result of the 2011 changes, what he ...

I will address some of the points that the right hon. Lady makes, because there is a broader cont...

rose—

rose—

I would like to make some progress.

The changes that have been made are important in making...

I think that this is the fourth debate I have attended in which the Minister has responded on the...

I will address the issue of notification later.

The Minister’s description of Hansard and the discussions that took place in this House was exten...

The hon. Lady is absolutely right that the public are uninterested in Hansard. My point was that ...

Is it not a fact that people were not aware of the Pensions Act 1995? We had 13 years of a Labour...

My hon. Friend is right. In 13 years of government, Labour—with 10 Pensions Ministers and nine Se...

I have given way many times and I am afraid that we are now getting to a stage at which MPs are s...

Exactly how much of that money went to the women concerned?

The hon. Lady needs to appreciate that the concept of dealing with pensions and money is that the...

I know the answer. How much?

That concession was made by the taxpayer—[Interruption.] It was made by the taxpayer, and the tot...

How much?

As I have said, and I am sorry that the hon. Lady has not got the message yet, and that she does ...

Order. There is a lot of shouting out now. If the Minister wants to take an intervention, he will...

Another reason that some have called for the legislation to be revisited is that they felt that n...

Will the Minister give way?

I will not give way, as I wish to make progress.

Following the 2011 Act, we wrote to all th...

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way and, despite the chuntering from those on the Labour...

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for putting those facts on the record. I am, however, sorry that ...

I thank the Minister for giving way, and he is clearly in a difficult corner, but I wondered whet...

The hon. Lady will be aware that Governments have to take difficult decisions at times. Consideri...

The women of this country will be watching this debate and listening to the Minister’s comments w...

If hon. Members did not give mini speeches in the middle of my speech, I could reach my conclusio...

Does the Minister agree that all Governments have the responsibility to be fair to the people of ...

The Government have a duty to all their citizens, and they have to take difficult decisions and p...

I will make progress. The landscape for women and employment has completely changed since the 194...

My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) just said to the Mi...

The hon. Gentleman in part repeated a question that was asked earlier, and I refer him to my prev...

On transitional funding, is it about time that the Government started tackling rich corporate tax...

I am sure the hon. Gentleman is delighted that he was able to score his cheap political point.