Patricia Ferguson

It is, as always, a pleasure to work under your chairmanship Sir Edward. I am pleased that the Petitions Committee has brought this debate to the House, especially given that as many as 160,000 signatures have been recorded, with some 266 of them from my own constituency. I thank all those who have written to me and all those who have campaigned and fought so hard over the years to try to bring the issue of WASPI women to a successful conclusion. I should probably make a declaration—not one that is required by procedure, but one that is relevant to this debate. I am a WASPI woman, one of over 4,000 in my constituency. Clearly I am still working, and in a fairly privileged position as a Member of the House, but I have watched the various increases in the state pension qualifying age with great interest over the years. I understand why it is necessary to equalise the pension age for men and women, but it is important to see that in context. In 1995, Parliament legislated to increase the pension age for women from 60 to 65 and bring it in line with the retirement age for men. That was meant to happen in stages between April 2010 and 2020, but in 2011, new legislation accelerated the timetable, meaning that women’s state pension age reached 65 by November 2018. The same legislation brought forward the increase in the overall state pension age to 66, which happened between December 2018 and October 2020 for both men and women. Many women of my age felt as though the qualifying age was becoming more and more distant the closer we got to our 60s. As we know, many women did not receive notification of the changes in the qualifying age, and many others did not receive it timeously enough to allow them to make adjustments and changes. The ombudsman considered the case of the WASPI women and concluded that there had been maladministration between 2005 and 2006, with a 28-month delay before beginning a direct mail exercise to notify affected women. Personally, I do not know whether I ever got a letter about the raising of the state pension age. I tend to keep that kind of thing, but I do not have such a letter. I do remember a friend telling me about it. I went on to the website and looked at the online calculator, and I found out that I would get my pension at 66, but not everyone has the opportunity to do that. Not everyone has access to the internet, and not everyone is literate enough with IT to be able to make those calculations. As the ombudsman said, such women lost opportunities to make informed decisions about their finances, which diminished their sense of personal autonomy and financial control. It seems to me that when an ombudsman records such findings and suggests a course of action, we should follow it, but the ombudsman clearly had an idea about the thinking within government—and I mean government in the generic sense, as the report predates this Government. I say that because the ombudsman concluded that it should lay the report before Parliament, and hoped that parliamentarians would implement its findings. That is what I hoped and expected would happen, and I cannot say how disappointed I am that it did not. But I say gently to the Minister that it is not too late to put it right. I mentioned earlier that I am in a privileged position, and I am: I am privileged to have been sent here to represent my constituents, and I will continue to use that privilege to support and fight for WASPI women until such time as the ombudsman’s recommendations are implemented.