OpinionAug 10 2016

The ‘fairer sex’ face an unfair future

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Women whose state pension age has been raised at an extraordinary rate appear to have been scrubbed from the political agenda.

Richard Harrington, in his first interview as pensions minister, failed to mention their plight once.

It appears he felt that adding six years to the pension age between 2010 and October 2020 was not an issue worthy of comment.

In an interview that appeared to come from the mouths of Whitehall advisers and was more interesting for what he left out than what he said, Mr Harrington ignored a burning issue that blights our pensions landscape.

For those of you sitting in your leather-backed chairs thinking this does not matter, consider the following.

Prudential’s retirement income survey shows that the average woman is still £5,400-a-year worse off than the average man in retirement. And that gap has grown by £600 over the past year.

Women retiring this year expect to live on an average income of £14,450 a year – that is 27 per cent less than the £19,850 enjoyed by the average man.

Of course, retirement ages for men and women needed to be equalised. But the manner in which governments have gone about this is indefensible. No account has been taken of the different patterns of working lives of women coming up to retirement compared with those working today.

And precious little time has been allowed to prepare for the changes.

One woman wrote to a national newspaper explaining how she had expected to receive her pension in 2014. It was not until February 2012 that the Department for Work & Pensions wrote to her to say she would not receive it until January 2020.

This leaves her with an income gap of £42,000 to plug – “a financial disaster”, as she described it.

It is one thing working until you are 66 or 67 if you know this is the target you are aiming for, both personally and financially. It is another entirely if your target retirement age is suddenly lobbed into the future and the government fails to prepare you adequately.

It is another thing if your target retirement age is suddenly lobbed into the future

You can argue that it is too expensive to plug the gap entirely. Yet as one example, we still choose to hand free prescriptions and eye tests to all at age 60 regardless of income or wealth. The Scots hand free prescriptions to all.

It is surely incumbent on all who understand the intricacies of this issue to do our utmost to gain some restitution for these women who are being forced to bear this unequal, unfair and unjustified financial burden.

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Silence speaks louder than words

Incidentally, it has struck me that our pensions minister could make the shortlist for the most anonymous new minister ever.

Try googling ‘new pensions minster’, as I did last week. It threw up the name of the Secretary of State for Work & Pensions, and there were plenty of mentions of Baroness Ros Altmann, but there was no sign of Mr Harrington.

I clicked on a gov.uk link. This took me to the website which explained the responsibilities of the role and listed previous occupants of this office as Baroness Altmann, CBE, and the Rt Hon Steve Webb. But Mr Harrington’s name was nowhere to be seen.

For social media addicts, he’s hardly worth following on Twitter. Since being appointed he’s retweeted on Wilko, a community health initiative, and a ‘Big Screen on the Beach’ event in Watford. But he has had nothing to say on pensions.

Let us hope his actions speak louder than his words.

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There’s no stopping her now

When the Beatles split up, George Harrison was ready to burst with frustration.

After years of being restricted to two songs an album, he unleashed the totemic triple album All Things Must Pass.

This all came to mind when I read Baroness Ros Altmann’s comments on removing the triple lock on the state pension shortly after reading her comments on the rapid rise in state pension age for women and the need for the Pensions Bill to survive intact – and before reading her comments on fears that ministers could be gagged as a result of Brexit.

After one year in office, when she has been forced to restrict herself mainly to guarded comments, she is fit to burst.

So much to say, so much to contribute, but she has clearly been stoppered up and, I suspect, very frustrated.

Now the cork has been popped and we are once again hearing her valuable and insightful contributions to everything pensions.

Welcome back Ros. We really have missed you.

Tony Hazell writes for the Daily Mail’s Money Mail section. He can be contacted at t.hazell@gmail.com