Transitional State Pension Arrangements for Women — House of Commons, 2016-02-24
Topic: Mixed Topics
Nadine Vanessa Dorries (Conservative, Centre-right): I rise—finally—to express disappointment—huge disappointment. This has not been a good debate so far, and I imagine that many of the WASPI women who have been watching it on television may have switched off long ago, because the party political point-scoring on all sides has been pretty embarrassing Real women are affected by this, and have real issues. It is a fact that in 1995, following the first legislative change, the Labour party had 13 years during which it did not act: it did not inform women. It is also a fact that my own party has failed women in terms of communication. As for the Scottish National party, it was not even here. So yes, there have been failures on both sides of the House. I stand here as a WASPI woman, and I have received no communication whatsoever. It is not true to say that women have been informed. It is also not true to say that there has been a wide campaign of advertisements and information on this subject. The campaign of advertisements and information was about general pension changes; it did not specifically target the group of women who have been so badly affected What I want to talk about—during the very few minutes that I have left, after all the party political point-scoring—are the issues that are really affecting those women. I am going to use some words that will probably make the men cringe. Many people will think that I should not talk about such matters in the House. The fact is, however, that many women, when they reach a certain age, have health issues that men do not have to deal with. None of that is taken into consideration. If I had been here when the equalisation of the pension age was about to be introduced, I would not have supported it, because women have to deal with issues later in life that men simply do not have to deal with. Women are carers, and women in their fifties and sixties are more likely to be carers than women of any other age. It is a fact that 47.7% of breast cancer diagnoses are given to women in their fifties and sixties. Those are the real issues faced by the women out there who are affected by this legislation What do we say to the woman who has had breast cancer, has had 10 courses of chemotherapy and radiotherapy, and who has now been told that she cannot retire when she thought she was going to, but has to go back to work when she is half the weight she has been at any time in her life, and is sick, and is facing worse diagnoses in the future? What do we say to women who have lost their insurance and have been blitzed with one issue after another because of their illness? There are women like that in my constituency. There is a woman in my constituency who was told by the Department for Work and Pensions that she should have been sent a letter, that in fact she had been sent a letter, and that she was telling lies. She now lives in the house that she was born in These women are facing dreadful problems. They are spending hours on the telephone, trying to find out from the DWP how they are affected and what is going to happen to them. Those are the complaints that women are making. It is not about who should have done what and when, it is not about which party is to blame, it is not about who is at fault; it is about the problems that these women are facing. This is what they want, and this is what I would ask of the Minister if he had the grace to listen to my speech, as I listened to his, rather than talking to his neighbour on the Front Bench. What I would like the Minister to do, on behalf of those women, is to stand at the Dispatch Box today and make a commitment that, at the very least—