English: Thanks very much to Joyce Watson. She set out the position, I thought, very clearly indeed. The DWP claim that women whose husbands turned 65 before 17 March 2008 were written to, and it was their responsibility to make a claim for the uplift. And yet, as more is known about all of this, it becomes clearer and clearer that that was not the case many, many times. There is evidence that the DWP, for example, wrote to the husbands of people rather than to women themselves, and those letters may never, ever have got to the people who were required to make the claim. It would be, I think, a gesture of good faith on behalf of the DWP that they would be willing to backdate those claims further than the standard 12 months. Of course, where the DWP itself was at fault - and it was at fault, we now know, in many thousands of cases - then the payments will be backdated to the time at which the claim first would have been effective. Here in Wales, we don't yet have the detailed information, through the DWP, of the number of women who've been directly affected. What we do know, Llywydd, is that the group in our population least likely to take up the benefits to which they are entitled is single women aged over 75, and that's been the case for many years, and across many different types of benefits. We know for sure that the people who are most likely to have been adversely affected by all of this are the people who were least likely to have been in a position to put that right. So, we start from a very difficult place. We have, as Baroness Altmann, the Conservative former pensions Minister, said, an underclass of often elderly female pensioners emerging who are living on far less than they should be. Jane Hutt, in the previous Senedd, wrote to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman urging that office to prioritise the complaints received from women in this position, to try to expedite a resolution of this matter, and Welsh Ministers will continue to take up the cases of Welsh individuals who find themselves in this awful position.
Welsh: Diolch yn fawr iawn i Joyce Watson. Fe wnaeth hi ddisgrifio'r sefyllfa, yn fy marn i, yn glir iawn yn wir. Mae'r Adran Gwaith a Phensiynau yn honni yr ysgrifennwyd at fenywod y trodd eu gwŷr yn 65 oed cyn 17 Mawrth 2008, ac mai eu cyfrifoldeb nhw oedd gwneud cais am y cynnydd. Ac eto, wrth i ni ddysgu mwy am hyn i gyd, daw'n gliriach o hyd nad oedd hynny'n wir mewn nifer fawr o achosion. Mae tystiolaeth bod yr Adran Gwaith a Phensiynau, er enghraifft, wedi ysgrifennu at wŷr pobl yn hytrach nag at fenywod eu hunain, ac efallai na fydd y llythyrau hynny erioed wedi cyrraedd y bobl yr oedd yn ofynnol iddyn nhw wneud yr hawliad. Byddai, yn fy marn i, yn arwydd o ewyllys da ar ran yr Adran Gwaith a Phensiynau pe bydden nhw yn fodlon ôl-ddyddio'r hawliadau hynny ymhellach na'r 12 mis safonol. Wrth gwrs, pan mai'r Adran Gwaith a Phensiynau ei hun oedd ar fai - ac yr oedd ar fai, rydym ni'n gwybod erbyn hyn, mewn miloedd lawer o achosion - bydd y taliadau yn cael eu hôl-ddyddio i'r adeg y byddai'r hawliad wedi bod yn ddyledus am y tro cyntaf. Yma yng Nghymru, nid oes gennym wybodaeth fanwl hyd yma, drwy'r Adran Gwaith a Phensiynau, am nifer y menywod yr effeithiwyd arnyn nhw yn uniongyrchol. Yr hyn yr ydym ni'n ei wybod, Llywydd, yw mai'r grŵp yn ein poblogaeth sydd leiaf tebygol o fanteisio ar y budd-daliadau y mae ganddyn nhw hawl iddyn nhw yw menywod sengl dros 75 oed, ac mae hynny wedi bod yn wir am flynyddoedd lawer, ac ar draws llawer o wahanol fathau o fudd-daliadau. Rydym yn gwybod yn sicr mai'r bobl sydd fwyaf tebygol o fod wedi eu heffeithio'n andwyol gan hyn i gyd yw'r bobl yr oedd hi'n lleiaf tebygol iddyn nhw fod mewn sefyllfa i unioni hynny. Felly, rydym ni'n cychwyn o fan anodd iawn. Mae gennym ni, fel y dywedodd y Farwnes Altmann, cyn Weinidog pensiynau'r Ceidwadwyr, is-ddosbarth o bensiynwyr sy'n aml yn fenywod oedrannus yn dod i'r amlwg gan eu bod yn byw ar lawer llai nag y dylen nhw fod yn ei wneud. Ysgrifennodd Jane Hutt, yn y Senedd flaenorol, at yr Ombwdsmon Seneddol a'r Gwasanaeth Iechyd yn annog y swyddfa honno i flaenoriaethu'r cwynion a gafwyd gan fenywod yn y sefyllfa hon, i geisio hwyluso penderfyniad ar y mater hwn, a bydd Gweinidogion Cymru yn parhau i ymgymryd ag achosion unigolion o Gymry sy'n eu canfod eu hunain yn y sefyllfa ofnadwy hon.