WASPI Campaign .... State Pensions

slightlymiffed

bmm78 wrote: »

Osborne ended up bottling the tax relief issue, as it was considered politically toxic in the run-up to Brexit. Without knowing his successor's plans, there may not be the same will to make dramatic changes with the current regime.

While tax relief reform may be inevitable at some point, it will probably take either a very strong government or a coalition (to spread the blame). It will annoy a lot of tory core voters if and when it happens.

I actually suggested prior to the budget (on a different forum) that savings from tax relief could be used to help fund transitional state pension relief. It's not an idea that has had much air time though, and it's wide of the mark to suggest that this is the reason for the widespread antipathy towards WASPI within the pension industry. It's probably more along the lines that (rightly or wrongly) the WASPI campaign is seen as embodying compensation culture, with a bit of inter-generational conflict and good old-fashioned mysogyny thrown in there for good measure.

Thank you for that explanation bmm - it is a pity indeed that the suggestion to use savings from pensions tax relief to fund transitional state pension relief wasn't taken up. It would have certainly been worth considering.

You are also right I believe, in the view that Waspi are seen as the embodiment of the 'compo' culture with endemic misogyny and inter-generational conflict used against them too.

It hasn't helped either with the continual insistence that Waspi 'have not withdrawn' their original ask of rolling back their pension age to 60 which has allowed MP's and others like jamesd here, to propagate the assertion that it would take an outrageous £77 billion to right the wrong(s) which even the most outspoken and critical on this forum are in agreement need to be addressed. I don't believe that this is now their 'ask' but still the misinformation circulates. And I have to question why?

I also think Waspi need expert guidance now (maybe Ros Altmann?) to step in and help steer them towards a fair and realistic settlement.

slightlymiffed

jamesd wrote: »

Given how often WASPI supporters don't give costs - always - a bit of repetition seems useful. In this case, collecting together things from several different posts into one to make it easier to see the whole cost picture in context.

Jamesd - in less than 1,000 words please (!), explain to me exactly how a group of ordinary 1950's born women are in a position, or should be placed in a position, to 'give costs' to alleviate the very unfair position they have found themselves in through absolutely no fault of their own?

Your tedious repetition of this £77 billion needed to provide transitional relief is so misleading and I wonder why you feel the need to repeat it ad infinitum. You know as well as most here, that this figure is so impossibly high because 'rolling back' womens' SPA to 60 is unrealistic and won't happen, despite, in my own view, the legitimate finding that successive governments failed to inform and disseminate vital information to women about changes to their pension age for 14 years.

saver861

slightlymiffed wrote: »

Jamesd - in less than 1,000 words please (!)

hmmmm ..... can't see that happening myself ..... that's a bigger ask than WASPI's!!!

jamesd

slightlymiffed wrote: »

to right the wrong(s) which even the most outspoken and critical on this forum are in agreement need to be addressed.

Just in case you include me in that group, I do not agree that any of the things mentioned by WASPI supporters is a wrong that needs to be righted in any way that is practical today.

slightlymiffed wrote: »

It hasn't helped either with the continual insistence that Waspi 'have not withdrawn' their original ask of rolling back their pension age to 60 which has allowed MP's and others like jamesd here, to propagate the assertion that it would take an outrageous £77 billion ... I don't believe that this is now their 'ask' but still the misinformation circulates. And I have to question why?

Because as of their oral evidence before the Work and pensions Select Committee on 16 December 2015 and again confirmed by a tweet on 29 June 2016 after the meeting with Baroness Altmann that was still what WASPI was saying they wanted: "Basically, what we are asking – and we feel this is a very fair ask – is for the Government to put all women in the 50s, born on or after 6 April 1951 and affected by the state pension age in exactly the same position they would have been in had they been born on or before 5 April 1950".

You'll find that there are costs for a range of other options given in some of the documents that I've linked to.

77 billion is of course far less than the real cost because that assumes that a solution that is massively discriminatory to men - increasing their state pension age but not that of these women - would be legal and it clearly wouldn't be.

slightlymiffed wrote: »

I also think Waspi need expert guidance now (maybe Ros Altmann?) to step in and help steer them towards a fair and realistic settlement.

One problem is that the fair and realistic settlement would involve things like faster changes for women so that the cost to men of the more recent Act is not higher as a proportion of state pension income for men than for women. It's not women overall who are losing most from those changes, it's men. Any change to help these women would increase the unfairness to the men affected by the change, as well as presumably being an unlawful increase in gender discrimination unless it was provided to both genders and those of neither gender.

Some of the cheaper options include things like these:

£0.2 billion: Increase qualifying age to 65 by November 2018 on proposed timetable; freeze at 65 until September 2019 then fast-track increase to 66 by January 2021.

£0.3 billion: Increase qualifying age to 64 years 6 months between April 2016 and March 2018; increase in parallel to existing timetable to reach 66 by March 2021.

£0.75 billion: Increase qualifying age to 65 on 1995 Pensions Act timetable; fast-track increase to 66 between April 2020 and July 2021.

£0.8 billion for years from 2017/18 through 2019/20 only: Introducing a means-tested payment of £120 per week to men and women reaching SPa under the 1995 Act timetable.

At least the first three of those would be increasing discriminating against men by increasing their loss compared to women.

jamesd

slightlymiffed wrote: »

Jamesd - in less than 1,000 words please (!), explain to me exactly how a group of ordinary 1950's born women are in a position, or should be placed in a position, to 'give costs' to alleviate the very unfair position they have found themselves in through absolutely no fault of their own?

Easy. That has no cost because it would involve those women having their state pension ages brought forward. Or alternatively some cost in delaying the increase for men so that the cost to men of the more recent Act's delay is the same for men as women. At the moment men lose more from it than women do due to their shorter life expectancies, so that a one year delay for both men and women loses the men a higher proportion of their state pension lifetime income.

If they want costed solutions for other options they can do what others can do: pay appropriate experts to produce estimates. If the group truly has lots of support such costs should be easy to fund via donations.

jamesd

slightlymiffed wrote: »

Your tedious repetition of this £77 billion needed to provide transitional relief is so misleading and I wonder why you feel the need to repeat it ad infinitum.

Because as of 29 June 2016 that is still what WASPI was asking for and the 77 million is a major understatement of the cost of delivering that.

slightlymiffed wrote: »

You know as well as most here, that this figure is so impossibly high because 'rolling back' womens' SPA to 60 is unrealistic and won't happen

I agree that it won't happen but it is still the best, though still greatly understated, cost for what WASPI is still asking for. I've linked to and mentioned lower cost options for those who might prefer those. Maybe eventually WASPI might decide to ask for something cheaper. Until they do, though, it's important that people realise just how outrageous the cost of what they are asking for is and one of the best ways to do that is to say what it might be and compare that to other benefits spending and government revenue each year. Which is why I did that in my earlier post.

The remedy here isn't to stop saying 77 billion, it's for WASPI to ask for something else instead. Then people can write about and discuss the cost for that instead.

missbiggles1

slightlymiffed wrote: »

Thank you for that explanation bmm - it is a pity indeed that the suggestion to use savings from pensions tax relief to fund transitional state pension relief wasn't taken up. It would have certainly been worth considering.

You are also right I believe, in the view that Waspi are seen as the embodiment of the 'compo' culture with endemic misogyny and inter-generational conflict used against them too.

It hasn't helped either with the continual insistence that Waspi 'have not withdrawn' their original ask of rolling back their pension age to 60 which has allowed MP's and others like jamesd here, to propagate the assertion that it would take an outrageous £77 billion to right the wrong(s) which even the most outspoken and critical on this forum are in agreement need to be addressed. I don't believe that this is now their 'ask' but still the misinformation circulates. And I have to question why?

I also think Waspi need expert guidance now (maybe Ros Altmann?) to step in and help steer them towards a fair and realistic settlement.

If that were really to be the case, why do you think so many women, themselves born in the 50s, have so little sympathy with the Waspi position?

Daniel54

jamesd wrote: »

House of Commons Library Number CBP-07405, 6 July 2016 research briefing "Increases in the State Pension age for women born in the 1950s: of particular interest because it gives the cost for women only of undoing the 1995 Act changes at £77 billion just until 2020-21

James,you may have missed it but the £77bn figure was first published in the WPSC report of 14th March ( paragraph 33)

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201516/cmselect/cmworpen/899/899.pdf

bmm78

missbiggles1 wrote: »

If that were really to be the case, why do you think so many women, themselves born in the 50s, have so little sympathy with the Waspi position?

The reasons for lack of sympathy with the Waspi position varies by the individual. For some it will be based on a full understanding of the issues, but judging by the comments on many forums / articles there is still a lot of people who dismiss it simply as a "welcome to equality, luv" situation.

bmm78

slightlymiffed wrote: »

It hasn't helped either with the continual insistence that Waspi 'have not withdrawn' their original ask of rolling back their pension age to 60 which has allowed MP's and others like jamesd here, to propagate the assertion that it would take an outrageous £77 billion to right the wrong(s) which even the most outspoken and critical on this forum are in agreement need to be addressed. I don't believe that this is now their 'ask' but still the misinformation circulates. And I have to question why?

The issue is that it was given as evidence to a parlimentary committee, which could be considered as only one step below giving evidence in a court of law.

If this is no longer their ask (which it probably isn't), the correct practice would be to retract/update their ask to the Work and Pensions Committee.