Why do they not do so? The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions occasionally comes to the Chamber to answer questions, but he has ducked out of the last five debates, and he is not here today. I have suggested before that we ought to sanction him for failing to turn up to work, and I think that may be a good idea. The truth is that the Government are not offering any further suggestions about how they might do what the Secretary of State promised in 2011. He said at the Dispatch Box that transitional arrangements would be put in place for these women, but he has not offered any such arrangements. The Government have offered nothing but defensive positions.
I hate to be partisan; it is really not in my nature. However, I cannot but draw Members’ attention to the guidance on the Whips’ note about Women Against State Pension Inequality that has been handed around to Government Members. It states quite clearly that the WASPI campaign is demanding that
“all women born after April 1951…be given their pension at age 60”
and that
“no one will see any reduction in their income as a result of the changes to the state pension age”.
It claims that the rise in the state pension age has been “widely communicated” and states, as the Minister will, no doubt, repeat in a moment, that absolutely nothing more can be done.
On every point, the crib sheet and the Government are wrong. Women affected have lost income—the state pension income that they would have been paid under the previous arrangements. The changes were not widely communicated, as I have made clear today. The WASPI women are not opposed to the equalisation of the state pension age. Their petition, which had 155,000 signatures, said so explicitly. They support it, but they want what the Government promised: transitional arrangements.