Mhairi Black said that she was "concerned that the acceleration of that equalisation directly discriminates against women born on or after 6 April 1951, leaving women with only a few years to make alternative arrangements, adversely affecting their retirement plans and causing undue hardship".
MPs from across political parties agreed that their female constituents did not have enough time to make alternative arrangements, and were not informed of the changes at all on a number of occasions.
Mhairi Black added:
"It is important to highlight that the Government did not send out a single letter to women. There was no official correspondence between the Government and the individuals affected, alerting them to the changes that were going to happen to them. Even the previous Pensions Minister, Steve Webb, recognised that not everybody knew that the changes had happened in the 1995 Act.
"Women were not personally notified by anybody official until 14 years after the changes came in. That is 14 fewer years that women have had to prepare and to try to make alternative arrangements.
"Many constituents who have written to me said that the information in the letters that they did receive was conflicting. They were getting different information. In one case, a constituent was told that they had enough contributions to receive their full state pension at 60, which was a few months away, only to receive a further letter three weeks later telling her that she will not get her pension until she is nearly 66.
"Pensions are not benefits; they are a contract. People enter into them on the basis that if they pay x amount of national insurance they will receive y at a certain age."
Labour MP Carolyn Harris said that half a million women now face an extra delay of more than a year, and 300,000 face an extra wait of 18 months, costing them in excess of £12,000 each in lost state pension.
Neil Gray, SNP MP, said:
"The simple truth is that women born in the 1950s will be disproportionately burdened by the Government’s plan for many reasons, not least because men of the same age are and have long been in a better position to offset at least part of the loss through savings or a private defined contribution pension scheme.
"The Pensions Policy Institute, in its submission to the Work and Pensions Committee on the Government’s pension reforms, emphasised that point by illustrating that only 65% of women in the 55 to 59 age range are economically active compared with around 76% of men. The gap is even greater among those in the 60 to 64 age bracket: 34% of women are currently economically active compared with 54% of men."
Conservative MP Huw Merriman replied:
"Where I have issues with the motion is that although I agree very much with the concern raised, I do not ultimately see a remedy. I stood on a manifesto commitment that pledged us to deliver a budget surplus by 2020, which means that compensation for this matter would have to be paid for by another group of my constituents."
Discussing the debate, Tom McPhail, Head of Pensions Research at Hargreaves Lansdown, commenteed:
“The campaigners are getting their voice heard through various parliamentary channels. The question is whether the government will make any concessions, knowing that the cost could very quickly run into £billions, or stick to their guns and suffer the inevitable ill-feeling and negative publicity this would cause.”
Kate Smith, Regulatory Strategy Manager at Aegon, added that the parliamentary debate offers a "glimmer of hope" for women affected by changes to state pension age.
She said:
“It makes perfect sense for female and male’s State Pension Age to equalise at age 65. The problem is the rapid rise in SPA for females to age 65 in 2018, then to age 66 by 2020, with little notice has come as a shock to many, leaving some women unprepared for retirement and some in financial despair. Changes to the state pension age of women have been planned for some time, but in 2011 the government took the decision to accelerate the pace of change. The forthcoming debate is likely to focus on the fairness of this decision, and while there’s no doubt, the state pension age will rise for women, it’s just possible they might win some concessions on the timings.
“For many, the State pension is the bedrock of people’s future income in retirement. It’s absolutely fundamental to their planning that people know exactly when and what they will receive from the government. They shouldn’t have to find out ‘by accident’. To give people absolute clarity the government needs to send everyone personalised statements setting out what they get from the State just like the pension industry does for private and workplace pensions. Unlike private pensions, the State pension doesn’t have the built in flexibilities of choosing to receive retirement income earlier, or continuing to pay contributions into later life and building up a bigger pension pot. At the very least it would seem reasonable to allow women to take their state pension from the age they had expected, to provide an income, even if this comes at the cost of receiving a lower amount to compensate for earlier payment.”
