Inform the debate on the effect of the equalisation of the state pension age on women

Figgerty

jem16 wrote: »

Can we please stick to the topic of this thread which is to inform the debate.

WASPI has changed their main "ask" on Facebook.

Why was this done at such a late stage and after people have put their name to the petition? This is hugely detrimental to the whole campaign as people don't know what they're signing up to.

Perhaps they are taking on board all the criticism in Money Saving Expert and other media.

I sign many petitions because I agree with the sentiment but that does not mean I agree with all the aims.

jem16

Figgerty wrote: »

Perhaps they are taking on board all the criticism in Money Saving Expert and other media.

No I'm afraid they are not - Facebook "ask" Number 2 contained an error apparently and has now been amended to;

What is our ask? "WASPI ask the Government to put all women born in the 50s, or after 6 April 1951 and affected by the state pension age in the same finacial position they would have been in had they been born on or before 5th April 1950". What is our ask? "WASPI ask the Government to put all women born in the 50s, or after 6 April 1951 and affected by the state pension age in the same finacial position they would have been in had they been born on or before 5th April 1950". All we are asking is to give us what we are entitled to. All we are asking is for the Government to meet with us.

So the question needs to be asked at the debate - why has it been changed after the petition has gained signatures? This part is the main addition;

All we are asking is to give us what we are entitled to. All we are asking is for the Government to meet with us.

Figgerty

After the first change in the SPA since 1940, my SPA was increased to 63¾ years. Why then did the DWP or Parliament think it was fair to increase it yet again to 65½ years. Hitting the same group twice was cruel and ruined the retirement plans of many, including me.

Figgerty

jem16 wrote: »

No I'm afraid they are not - Facebook "ask" Number 2 contained an error apparently and has now been amended to;

So the question needs to be asked at the debate - why has it been changed after the petition has gained signatures? This part is the main addition;

This is the #Waspi petition and their activities have managed to get a Parliamentary debate. Other people, including me, have just latched on to their campaign. We should be glad that Parliament is willing to listen to a group of elderly women who feel they have not been treated fairly. This is the type of campaigning Baroness Altmann approved of and joined in before she joined Parliament. She should be proud of their campaigning spirit..I am.

jem16

Figgerty wrote: »

This is the #Waspi petition and their activities have managed to obtain a Parliamentary debate.

That's the issue - it's not mentioned in the actual petition which thousands have signed. Are they aware of this "ask" or not?

As already said this thread is not a discussion thread - please use the other thread for that. If you have a specific comment that you wish to make to the committee then do so but otherwise please don't post here but in the other thread.

Woollydivine

For me the debate clearly highlighted the plight & injustice of this SPA increase for women.
I feel that the debate on notifications has raged,but it doesn't deny the the fact that many women & men are suffering because of this steep hike of 6 years in total, done over only a 4 year cohort, born '51-54, but badly affecting all born in the '50's.
I would now like this debate to focus on some resolution which will ease the hardship for the 1950's women (and partners)
I would just like to ask the minister to take responsibility, admit that there has been mismanagement by previous governments (of all parties), and to do the right thing now to provide support for those who are suffering hardship because of it.

Teaandscones

If the government was going to reverse the SPA increases for women announced 23 years ago in the 1993 budget, then surely on grounds of equality they would need to reduce SPA for men to 60 as well. It is of course economics of the madhouse, but what is a spare £100 billion or so to bother about.

The debate should concentrate on what can be achievable as changes to SPA even those of 2011 are big money which the treasury can't go back on realistically. What can be achieved is what other posters have referred to, regarding pension credit for women and men in their 60's and also making the sanctions regime for benefits more humane. This would cost a relatively small sum and assist those most in need.

McMoon

On 7th January 2016 the minister Mr Vara responded for the Government. He supported the contention that post-1995 events are the “big issue” and that there was a 13-year-plus “total failure to do anything to make sure that those women were informed”. Clearly major DWP maladministration, whether due to Ministers (Labour and the others) or civil servants.

MPs should stop dismissing the post-95 events as ‘poor communication – lessons will be learnt for the future – move along’.

Instead they should consider the relevance of the ‘Inherited SERPS’ debacle. That was legislation passed in 1986 to take effect 14 years later, in 2000. The proposed impact was much less than the current case – no pensioner would lose a day or a penny of their State Pension, with the widow/er losing part of their expected inherited entitlement.

The communication failed badly in that case too – some affected people were misinformed verbally or in writing, but most were simply not told for 14 years and lost the chance to plan ahead to cover the loss.

Complaints of maladministration were considered by the Parliamentary Ombudsman, and also the Public Accounts Committee (comprising several current MPs including George Osborne and Frank Field). Government initially wanted only to compensate people who could prove that they were misinformed, but eventually agreed deferrals/changes costing £billions, and had to write millions of individual letters.

The failures were ascribed to lack of ‘end-to-end’ admin by the DSS (now DWP), leading to creation in 2001 of the Pension Service which promised that ‘the lessons had been learned about communication’.

In 2001 the 1995 Act changes (to SPA) were already in the pipeline and should have been the first test of those ‘lessons’, but no letters were sent to affected women – 6 years wasted already.

In 2004 DWP Research (Report 221) expressed ‘cause for concern’ that only 43% of all affected women (only 36-38% with low-pay or no-pay) knew their SPA – they should be ‘targeted with information’. Only 2% who did know had learned from DWP, so there was huge scope for Pension Service improvements but still no personalised letters were sent – another 3 years wasted.

The 2007 Pensions Act increased SPAs further, to 66 and beyond. For the first time men were also affected and finally DWP decided individual letters were required, giving DoB, SPA and SPD (no Data Protection problems apparently!). The letters sent out between 2009 and 2013 gave women much less notice than men, for a much bigger delay/loss.

The changes under discussion relate to gender equality and fairness. MPs should consider ‘equality of notice’ – people need time to save towards replacing future lost income.

The letters gave men between 6.75 years notice of a few months delay/loss, and 7.5 years notice of 12 months loss – at worst at least 7.5 months notice per 1 month loss. This would equate to 15 months notice of 2 months loss, 5 years notice of 8 months loss etc.

Women should be treated equally fairly e.g. a woman given 30 months (2.5 years) notice pre-60 should not have a delay/loss of more than 4 months pension and so on.

MPs should ask the Pensions Minister to invite WASPI, and others, to put forward options to ease the transition, particularly for those worst affected. And then publish a range of costed alternatives for MPs and the public to discuss further.

slightlymiffed

Following the debate in the House of Commons on 7th February, I would like to ask Under Secretary for State at the Department of Work & Pensions, Shailesh Vara the following questions concerning DWP communications to women about changes to state pension age legislated in both the the Pensions Acts of 1995 and 2011:


• You state that, in 2004, research by DWP showed 73% of people aged 45-54 were aware of changes to women’s state pension age. Is this figure accurate? Would men really be aware of changes to women’s state pension age?
A more accurate piece of research in the House of Commons Library Briefing Paper CBP 7405 Section 2.2 (page 14) states that ‘…research undertaken in March 2000 which showed that 30% of women aged 18-55 were aware that changes to the state pension age had been made’.
In other words, in 2004, 70% of women aged 18-55 were not aware of changes to women’s state pension age.
Are we thus expected to believe that in just 4 years and without DWP actually writing to any affected women (unless they had specifically requested a State Pension Forecast) that there should be such a massive increase in awareness of changes to women’s state pension age by both men and women?

• As a 1954 born woman, affected by both the 1995 and 2011 Pensions Acts, I categorically did not receive a letter from DWP following the 1995 Pensions Act. I was only advised of my SPA in May 2004 (9 years after the 1995 Pensions Act) when I contacted DWP to request a State Pension Forecast. Had I not done so, my first (unsolicited) notification from DWP was in January 2012 following the accelerated SPA rise in the 2011 Pensions Act, and when I was already 58. This was 17 years after the 1995 Act.
Disappointingly, there have also been determined attempts by some ‘financial/IFA/pensions experts’ on social media to discredit affected women with assertions such as we 1950’s women didn’t know about the 1995 Act because ‘literacy levels obviously very poor’ among WASPI campaigners and that we must have somehow ‘forgotten’ we ever received anything. This type of sneering prejudice is disingenuous, misleading and insulting and demonstrates what an uphill struggle it has been to raise public awareness and support for our position.

• Although we have been told repeatedly that the accelerated transitional arrangements in the 2011 Pensions Act were thoroughly debated in Parliament, what has not been made clear is that MP’s were not then aware of the failure of DWP to adequately inform women of the changes to their SPA in the 1995 Pensions Act. This is very relevant and absolutely crucial to any debate.


Conclusion

Systemic failures by DWP to inform

Should the failure by DWP to adequately inform women affected by the changes to State Pension Age following the 1995 Pensions Act be a case to be referred to the Committee of Public Accounts in the same way as a similar failure by the DWP to inform the public about a change to inheritance arrangements for SERPS in 2000?*

DWP’s failure to inform women about the implications of the 1995 Pensions Act for at least 14 years following legislation can only be described as negligent and has had devastating financial consequences for some women (and their husbands/partners).


*This is detailed in "Improving service quality; Action in response to the Inherited SERPS problem" published 17 July 2003 HC 616, summarised below:

In 2000, the Committee of Public Accounts reported on the failure by the then Department of Social Security to inform the public about a change in inheritance arrangements for the State Earnings-Related Pension Scheme (SERPS). This change—due to come into effect in October 2000—would have reduced from 100 to 50% the amount of a deceased person’s SERPS pension that could be inherited by a surviving spouse. However, in March 2000, having accepted that adequate publicity had not been given, the Government announced that the change would be postponed, and following consultation, published new proposals in November 2000. These changes—which are likely to cost an estimated £12 billion by 2050—were designed to give full protection to all existing SERPS pensioners, give younger people adequate notice of the change in inheritance arrangements, and provide transitional arrangements for those approaching retirement age. Between February 2001 and October 2002, the Department wrote to, or targeted advertising at, more than 20 million people to advise them of the new arrangements. The Social Security (Inherited SERPS) Regulations came into force in October 2002.

greenglide

But the inherited SERPS was very different as DWP were sending out wrong information over this for a long period of time. I am not aware of the DWP informing people that their SPa was 60 when it had actually change to 60 - 65 - this is the equivalent.