I got into an interesting debate with Frances Coppola on Twitter last night (a very auspicious date: 17.7.17). Frances is a very knowledgeable and capable pension person – with whom I don’t always agree – but she always conducts herself with me in a dignified and respectful fashion and I much admire her expertise.
She said “You were never told you were entitled to a pension at 60. You may have believed that, but that’s not the same as being told.”
If that is true, then this was one of the greatest magic tricks of the last century – all women born in the 50’s thinking/imagining/dreaming they had been told the same thing; at the same time; in the same way; entirely independently. And then all thinking/imagining/dreaming they hadn’t received the letters the DWP alleged they had sent advising the cohort – of which I am one – that the imaginary dream we had all had about receiving our State Pension at 60 was going to be changed to 65, 66, 67 or 68.
This does, of course, beg the question: if we had never been told we were paying our NI contributions so we could receive our State Pension at age 60, why did the DWP subsequently claim they had moved the goalposts to age 66? Surely, if they had never told us in the first place, they wouldn’t have needed to tell us otherwise? And who can provide any evidence that from an early age we Cohorts had paid our NI contributions so we could receive our State Pension at some undetermined age from middle to late sixties – or beyond? Wouldn’t one or two of us have queried this state of affairs?
But the point of this blog is not to scratch the scab of the whole WASPI debate, but to look at the thorny question of “equality”. WASPI opponents bang the drum that we don’t want equality – but are seeking “preferential treatment” over men. I can’t speak for WASPI members, but here is my take on this equality/inequality issue:
As little girls, we were generally segregated from little boys in many different ways – and treated differently because it was accepted that our lives would be different when we grew up. At school we did needlework, domestic science (including ironing, cooking, cleaning the silver) and in general our whole academic and sporting education and development were geared towards our femininity. The boys were steered towards metal work, carpentry, football, rough and tumble and engineering.
As we got older, our education, families and society in general taught us that we needed an “interim” career to prepare us for being wives and mothers. In many different social classes, large numbers of young women prepared to be nurses, secretaries, shop workers so we could have a job we could return to once we had married and brought up our children. We were taught that it was a man’s job to go out to work and bring home a wage for the family, and the woman’s job to keep a good home, put a decent meal on the table, and bring up the children.
I remember being a first-time mother in Edinburgh in 1980 and going back to work a few weeks after my baby was born. And I was treated like a pariah. Many mothers were so treated in Scotland, England and Wales (and undoubtedly Northern Ireland). In fact, I had been unceremoniously sacked by my employer when I announced my pregnancy as they didn’t think I was capable of continuing to work either throughout my pregnancy or after my baby was born. I do not believe this was entirely untypical back then.
We women earned considerably less than our male counterparts and were not entitled to occupational pensions. So we never had the opportunity to build up pensions of our own – and for those of us who were widowed or divorced, we were left hung out to dry in later years. In fact, many of us also had the additional responsibility of looking after and supporting our elderly parents or parents in law.
Does anyone remember the term “housewife” being replaced by “domestic engineer”? I do, and I remember the challenges of looking after and juggling the multiple responsibilities of young children, a home, a husband who was often tired and grumpy, and my own health/well-being/emotional stability. It wasn’t easy. And when my father died and my mother developed dementia it got harder still.
This isn’t about me – but this will be a situation with which many WASPI members will be entirely familiar. And here’s where we come to the “equality” bit. How many men gave birth to a number of children? How many men never had the opportunity of occupational pensions? How many men never had their own income but relied on the dregs left over after the bills were paid and the children supported? Yes, I know many men worked their backsides off in a wide variety of different jobs and professions. But there was a clear distinction between the situations and opportunities afforded to men and women in the 60’s and 70’s.
We women gave our lives to supporting our husbands, families, children, homes – and working as much as would could depending on our domestic circumstances. And now we’ve been shafted, are being told to “get over it” and accused of not wanting equality. We weren’t equal back in the 60’s, and we can’t backdate equality now.
So whether we were told, or we believed, or we imagined, or we hoped we would receive our State Pension at age 60, we didn’t. We haven’t. We won’t. And this gimpy government with which we are unfortunately saddled can make all the excuses in the World, but it won’t change the fact that a major part of the backbone of British society – 1950’s women – were told we would receive our State Pension at age 60.
Many of us gave up career and pension opportunities to look after our families. None of us entered into marriages and families assuming we would become widowed or divorced. None of us imagined that in addition to looking after our children we would also have to look after our parents.
But perhaps the most sinister and incomprehensible part of the whole WASPI matter is the number of MPs and ministers who have refused to acknowledge the WASPI problem on the basis that the State could not afford to introduce transitional arrangements. WASPI women are not asking for an unfair advantage over men – they are asking for something which approaches and addresses (albeit inadequately) the inequitable position of women who were not given the opportunity to make revisions to their retirement arrangements.
Our only crime is that we are living too long. We refuse to die on time. Despite the demands on our bodies of child birth and domestic industry, we have failed to pop off on time. My posturing will make not a blind bit of difference, of course.
Frances Coppola can keep on saying we were told that our SPA would be increased and that we were never told we could expect to receive our SP at age 60 all day long. But that does not change the fact that there is very considerable hardship for many 1950’s-born women who did believe they could expect to receive their SP at age 60 and who are now unable to get jobs to support themselves. Many of these women are in desperate need of transitional arrangements. These women paid their NI contributions all their working lives, brought up their children, supported their husbands and lived an unequal life. But now the State wants to backdate equality.
Every time I think this book about pension scams is done and I can put it away, a new scam or scammer pops up and I have to rethink it. And every time I add in a new sentence or paragraph, the formatting and pagination need to be adjusted. But, however imperfect and unfinished it may be, it is available on Amazon:
It has been much harder to write than I ever thought it would be. But nowhere near as hard as it is for the victims who have to live with the consequences of losing their pensions and investments – and gaining tax liabilities.
The purpose of this book is to warn the public against current scams and scammers (the same ones who have been doing it since 2010) and encourage the police and regulators to criminalise all forms of scams. The Pensions Regulator’s Lesley Titcombe has clearly stated that scammers are “criminals” and it is hoped they will all be prosecuted. The victims and the ethical members of the financial services industry want to see a zero-tolerance policy and a military-style campaign to stamp out this horrendous crime wave.
Evidence suggests that in the past seven years, there have been many £ billions lost to pension and investment scams – there are no precise “official” figures. But the dreadful fact is that the scammers who were targeting victims back in 2010, continued doing it in 2011; and 2012; and 2013; and 2014; and 2015, and 2016. And they are still doing it today. Happily and profitably. And nobody has stopped them or brought them to account for the horrific financial damage and distress they have caused.
It is hard to decide which is worse: the vicious, greedy, cold-hearted scammers or three sets of inept government or the feeble authorities who let them get away with it. Repeatedly. But it has to stop. A military-style, zero tolerance campaign has to be waged against all the guilty parties until every last one of them is brought to justice.
The tragic thing about these scams and the misery and financial ruin caused to so many thousands of victims is that this disaster was preventable. HMRC were warned by the industry about the potential for scams if the role of compulsory professional trustee was removed pre 2006. In a letter of March 2004 a specialist pension solicitor warned:
“It is essential that schemes offering self-administration and wide investment choice should have in place an independent person who has sufficient control of scheme assets to prevent abuse and sufficient knowledge and experience to know abuse when he sees it.
That does not necessarily mean that the system of pensioneer trustees should be retained in its current form but, if it is abolished without an effective replacement, we envisage that within the next 5 years the degree of abuse of such schemes by both incompetent and dishonest individuals will:
further stain the reputation of pensions generally; and
severely embarrass the government responsible for letting it happen.
Reputable professionals in the industry and the Government share a common aim of building a system of tax rules that is simple but is robust enough to last for a working lifetime without major overhaul. Such a system needs to contain adequate protections against abuse.”
The warning was ignored. And precisely what was predicted would happen, happened. And it will go on happening until and unless government, HMRC, regulators and police take responsibility for their failings and put in place robust measures to clean up the mess of the past/present and prevent future disasters.
This clear warning was brought to my attention by Martin Tilley who is director of technical services at Dentons Pension Management. Martin has written some excellent blogs and articles on the subject of pension scams and my favourite has to be this one:
I know the government is jolly busy at the moment with Brexit. But earlier this year there was a government consultation on pension scams – and still no word about what the battle plan is. In fact, neither Damian Green (Secretary of the DWP) nor Richard Harrington (Pensions Minister) will engage at the moment as they claim there is no point until after the consultation.
But they didn’t say how long after: three months? three years? With every day that they dither about, more victims will lose their life savings; more damage will be done to the reputation of the industry; more expensive will it become for the State to support those who have no retirement income; louder will be the ticking of the pension scam time bomb.
Richard Harrington recently stated that Britain can’t afford to implement transitional arrangements for 1950s-born women who weren’t notified their State pension age was going to be increased from 60 to 67. He reckons this would cost the country around £30 billion. With scams reportedly costing the British public £11 billion a year, the cost of supporting these thousands of victims throughout their retirement will be staggering. Plus the cost to the NHS (because of the amount of mental and physical health damaged caused by the stress of being scammed) will add to this enormous cost.
If you have read this blog from start to finish, it will have taken you seven minutes. During that time at least one person will have been scammed out of their life savings. If you read the Anatomy of a Pension Scam ebook from beginning to end, it could take you up to five hours if you read slowly and carefully. Think how many people could be scammed in that time. Avoidably.
Parliament debated the WASPI issue at the beginning of 2016. The culmination of months of hard work by the WASPI (Women Against State Pension Inequality) campaigners finally arrived on 7th January 2016. Mhairi Black (SNP MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire South) asked the Government to introduce “transitional arrangements” to help the hundreds of thousands of women suffering hardship as a result of the State Pension aged being raised from 60 to 66. It was never the campaigners’ case that the age should not have been raised at all – but that those women affected (born in the 1950’s) should have had proper notice to plan their finances and their retirement.
http://on.fb.me/1XazD71
Mhairi Black Raises the Pension Equalisation Debate in Parliament on the 7th Jan 2016
The surprise star of the show was the highly articulate and passionate Mhairi Black – aged just 21. With just eight months’ experience of being an MP, she shone out as a real champion of not just her own constituents, but all the WASPI’s who are victims of what was described as a “mess” caused by a succession of governments. This mess failed to communicate the raising of the State Pension age to those affected – either quickly enough or at all. Many women received contradictory notices from the DWP about when they could collect their pension and some received nothing. The resulting chaos is hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of women facing severe poverty, stress, physical and emotional health issues and relationship problems. Mhaira Black stated that these victims had been “shafted” by the government.
Ros Altmann: no intention of doing anything to help the WASPIs.
Another surprise in this issue has been the attitude of Ros Altmann who once “championed” the cause of women pensioners – even marching in the streets with them dressed as an “ordinary” woman. However, since being made Baroness and appointed Pensions Minister, her tune has changed from public-spirited enthusiasm to outright apathy at best – and total betrayal of WASPI victims at worst. The rest of the government has been no better – completely refusing to acknowledge the plight of the women affected.
Steve Webb previous Pension Minister – “bad decision made by the government based on a poor briefing”
Interestingly, former Pensions Minister Steve Webb, has admitted that the Coalition government did mess up pretty badly – both with the decisions and changes and with the way these were communicated to those affected. However, while claiming this was caused by the government not being “properly briefed” he also put much of the blame on the previous Labour government under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.
The opposition side of the House was not only pretty full but also full of praise and admiration for Mhairi Black and the WASPI campaigners – many of whom were sitting in the gallery watching the proceedings. However, it was evident that few Conservative MP’s felt this was an important enough issue to attend the House of Commons – as only two of them turned up at the start of the debate. By the end, this had dribbled up to five. The disgrace of this apathy by the Conservatives was repeatedly noted.
Shadow Pensions Minister, Nick Thomas-Symonds
Shadow Pensions Minister, Nick Thomas-Symonds, spoke in a powerful and compelling manner about the injustice of the situation addressed by the WASPI campaign. All those who heard him also heard a man of principle who will make an excellent champion for the millions of victims of pension problems in the UK.
By “champion”, I refer not just to the State Pension “mess” but also to the thousands of victims of pension scams who are facing poverty in retirement in the long term, and financial ruin in the short term at the hands of HMRC. Between 2010 and 2015 there were numerous pension liberation schemes set up, run and promoted by fraudsters who assured victims they could get “loans” from their personal and occupational pensions in a way that “exploited” tax law loopholes and that there would be no tax liabilities to pay. This has resulted in thousands of tax demands of 55% of the money “borrowed” from the pension funds – known as HMRC’s “unauthorised payment” charges.
George Osbourne
Sadly, it is statistically inevitable that there will be some unfortunate women who are victims of both situations i.e. WASPIs who have also been scammed out of their personal or occupational pensions and will be forced to pay 55% tax charges by HMRC. The Ark Class Action (including victims of not just Ark but also Capita Oak, Evergreen, Salmon Enterprises, London Quantum and other pension liberation scams) has tried to address the tax position with the Government. The object of the exercise was to try to negotiate a tax “amnesty” for victims who were assured by the fraudsters (one of which was a government consultant) that their “loans” were legal and tax compliant.
Iain Duncan-Smith
The Secretary of the Ark Class Action met with her MP, Iain Duncan-Smith – also Work and Pensions Secretary – to raise the matter. He agreed it was an unfair situation and promised to organise a meeting with Chancellor George Osborne and Treasury Secretary David Gauke at the end of 2014. He took the Ark victim’s entire case file and assured her he would get back to her. That was the last she heard from him, and her case file mysteriously “disappeared”.
I have been tremendously inspired by the WASPI campaign, and impressed with the support provided by MP’s and leading journalists such as Paul Lewis and Jeff Prestridge. I hope this will lead to similar support being given to the Ark Class Action – as there is much to be learned from the WASPI founders’ approach. What WASPI and ACA have in common, of course, is they both represent a group of decent, honest, hard-working people who have been victims of injustice and whose interests are being ignored by the present government.
House of Commons
Journalists have often asked me whether I was myself a victim of pension liberation fraud, and sometimes I have felt almost ashamed to admit that I am not, and that by definition I cannot talk with first-hand experience of the pain and distress suffered by the victims. However, I am a WASPI having been born in late 1954 and so can attest to the fact that I have NEVER received any notification from the DWP about the change in my State Pension entitlement date.
Those who watched the debate on television will have seen and heard the passion of so many MP’s who have constituents affected by the WASPI problem. Viewers may also have noticed the pathetic turn out by Conservative MP’s – suggesting not just apathy but complete contempt for the matter. I myself noticed the blond woman sitting next to Shailesh Vara who couldn’t stop yawning while he was talking. I guess it must be pretty boring and exhausting listening to a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Work and Pensions trying – and failing – to defend the indefensible.
Shailesh Vara
Unsurprisingly, the motion was carried by 158 to nil (the government didn’t even both to vote) – but there is no obligation by the government to do anything about the WASPI situation.
STATEMENTS (SMALL SELECTION) MADE BY MP’S DURING THE DEBATE
Mhairi Black (Paisley and Renfrewshire South – SNP): The 1995 Act increased the SP age for women from 60 to 65 to equalize the pension age so that women retired at the same age as men. The Turner Commission recommended that 15 years’ notice be given to individuals if their pension arrangements were to change to give them adequate time to respond appropriately. The changes were not to be brought in until 2010 which technically gave women 15 years’ notice. The problem is that nobody knew about that. As late as 2008, fewer than half of women knew that they would be affected. The National Centre for Social Research stated in 2011 that only 43% of women were aware of the planned change. Even the previous Pensions Minister, Steve Webb, recognised that not everybody knew that the changes had happened in the 1995 Act. Paul Lewis, financial journalist, told us that after researching he could barely find any reporting of the issue at all in 1995.
A response to a Freedom of Information request states that the Department eventually wrote to individuals affected and that “Mail campaigns took place between 2009 and 2013.” That is 14 years after 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.
But when giving evidence to the Work and Pensions Committee, financial journalist Paul Lewis told us that after researching this himself he could barely find any reporting of the issue at all in 1995. There were a few small press cuttings from the business pages at the back of some newspapers. A freedom of information request revealed that the Government did fund “broader” awareness campaigns, which ran in waves between 2001 and 2004, but that these campaigns “did not focus on equalisation in particular”. In fact, only one of the press adverts in those campaigns was focused on this issue—one press cutting roughly seven years after this had already been passed into law. It is quite evident that this whole thing became a total mess. I do not know whether it was not reported deliberately, for political reasons or fear of ramifications, or whether it was a genuine accident, but what I do know is that women were not notified. It was not reported and they were not given enough time to be able to make appropriate arrangements. This brings us on to the Pensions Act 2007, which increased the equalised state pension age from 65 to 66 between 2024 and 2026. It gave all affected people 17 years’ notice. That is fair enough, but then the Pensions Act 2011 came along and said, “Forget the 17 years’ notice, we’re going to rush this through. We need to do this right now.” The 2011 Act accelerated pension age equalisation for women and the subsequent increase to 66, effective from October 2016 onwards, meaning that affected women had only five years’ notice to try to remedy life plans that had been in place for years.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op): The hon. Lady is making an excellent speech and I welcome the debate she has brought to the House. Does she agree that many of these women have had a lifetime of low and unequal pay in low-paid jobs? They have had broken careers, because they have brought up children. Some may have got divorced or separated. Their whole life plan has been disrupted, destroyed and impoverished by this awful change.
Mhairi Black: I could not agree more with the hon. Gentleman. The 2011 Act made women wait an extra year to a year-and-a-half to claim their state pension. However, we have to remember and take into account the context that women did not know about the initial 1995 Act. We have a situation where there is a whole host of women who read about the 2011 Act and went, “Oh, God. Okay, I am going to have to be working an extra two years. I’d better start making plans. Oh no, wait a minute, I’m working till I’m 66. Where did that come from?” There is a whole host of women who have been given a double whammy. The Government have not and are not giving women enough time to prepare alternative plans. There have to be better transitional arrangements.
The Conservative ethos is to encourage independence and responsible choice, but how can that happen if we do not give people the time to make the responsible choices? By continuing this policy at such a high speed, the Government are knowingly and deliberately placing another burden on women who are already trying to deal with consequences of an Act passed 21 years ago that they have only now found out about. To put that into context, I am 21—that’s how old this is. One of my constituents told me that she began working at 17 and chose to pay the full rate of national insurance on the basis that she would retire at 60. Other options were available to her, but she said, “I want to retire at 60 so I’ll pay the price, through national insurance, my whole working life.” She put it in a way that I think is a very good and accurate description of what is happening. She has now found out that she is not retiring until she is 66. She says: “The coalition and this present Government have stripped us of our pensions with no prior warning and with no regard to the contract we all entered when we were 17.” She uses the term “contract”. That is an important point, because 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.
The Government have said: “The policy decision to increase women’s state pension age is designed to remove the inequality between men and women.” That is a strange definition of equality: I am being shafted and short-changed purely because of when I was born and because I am a woman. That is not my definition of equality.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con): I congratulate Mhairi Black on leading today’s debate, for which there is an extraordinary turnout, showing the considerable interest of so many Members in this subject. I was approached by several constituents who said they were going to be disadvantaged. I recorded a short podcast on the subject, which has now been followed by 145,000 people, many of whom have written to me about it—and not just my own constituents either. I want to pay tribute to the Women Against State Pension Inequality campaign, which has articulated the case so well in front of the Select Committee. Its petition has now been signed, I believe, by more than 103,000 people. I want to thank the WASPI campaign for the help and support it gave me, not least in telling nonconstituents to write to their own MPs rather than have them all writing to me—and I am exceedingly grateful for that. We all agree with equalisation of the pension age. Large sums of money are involved and difficult decisions have to be made, but it is important that the rule of fairness is applied as much as possible, and it is clear that a sizeable group of women seem to be bearing the brunt of these changes disproportionately.
I have had representations from constituents who were in low-paid jobs with huge caring responsibilities for children and other family members when they did not have access to free child care and other things—and we have them to thank. Yet it is those people for whom I believe there has been a breach of trust, as these changes hit them disproportionately. We have a large duty of care to them, but I do not think we are going to fulfil it.
