‘Devastation’ for women born in 1950s who miss out on state pensions says MP
RAISING the state pension age has had a ‘devastating’ impact on women born in the 1950s, east Runcorn MP Mike Amesbury has told a committee of fellow parliamentarians.
The Weaver Vale MP and shadow employment minister made the comments during a Westminster Hall debate.
A spokesman for Mr Amesbury’s office said the decision to accelerate the rise in women’s state pension age in 2011 affected 3.8m women nationally and 4,000 in Weaver Vale.
He told the debate: “It is clear that the decision to accelerate the rise in women’s state pension age has had a devastating impact on many women born in the 1950s. Many are now facing hardship and poverty as a result, as was recently highlighted in the UN report.
“Some 3.8m women affected did not have ‘fair notification’ of the changes.
“Those are the words not only of those 3.8m women nationally or the 4,000 women affected in my constituency, but of the former pensions minister Steve Webb. ● Mike Amesbury MP
“Those women certainly deserve recognition for this injustice, and fair transitional protections.”
He added: “Yesterday we recognised 100 years since the Parliament (Qualification Of Women) Act 1918, which allowed women to stand and vote in Parliament, a key milestone in a long campaign for women’s equality and suffrage.
“At the heart of that campaign for equality was a rallying cry to action, ‘deeds not words’.
“One hundred years on, our 1950s women need deeds, not words, and it is up to the minister and the Government to deliver them.”
Guy Opperman, parliamentary under-secretary for work and pensions, said the decision to raise the women’s state pen- ● sion age to 65 was made in 1993 in response to equality legislation and cases in the European courts.
He added that it was a Labour Government that set out plans to raise it further and incrementally to 68 over the next few decades but the coalition Government had brought forward the increase to 66 years of age to 2020, and to 67 by 2028.
Mr Opperman said: “The reality of the present situation is that the number of people receiving a state pension is expected to grow by one third over the next 25 years, and by 2034 there will be more than twice as many people over 100 as there are now.
“The old age dependency ratio is projected to rise significantly over the next 20-odd years.”