SDLP Foyle MP Mark Durkan has been praised by other MPs and WASPI campaigners for the ‘excellent’ speech he made in the House of Commons yesterday in the fight for compensation for women born in the 1950s who have been hit by state pension age rises – including in Derry and throughout the North.
The state pensions age is being equalised but in the process some 2.6 million women in the UK are losing out – leaving many dreams in tatters as those affected will have to defer retiring by up to six years.
Speaking during the Commons debate, Mr Durkan also praised the Women Against State Pension Inequality (WASPI) campaign which has seen more than 156,000 people sign their government e-petition calling for pension justice.
He said: “Let us remember that the salient point about the motion is that it ‘calls on the government to bring forward proposals for transitional arrangements for women adversely affected by the acceleration of the increase in the state pension age’. That is logical, reasonable and compelling.
“I am asking Conservative MPs to support this – not least those who valiantly fought over Equitable Life and called on the taxpayer to restore Equitable Life members to some position of equivalence.
“If they were prepared to fight for the Equitable Members Action Group and were indignant over Equitable Life, they should not be indifferent to the WASPI women and what they face. We should respond to them with justice.
“We should not offer the mixture of conceit and deceit that we have heard from some Conservative Members.
“These are not just haphazard victims of a drive-by cut in the name of austerity; they have been carefully selected and calculated as the victims. Why?
“These women have been used to inequality and injustice all their lives; they have been on the receiving end of inequality in respect of gender pay gaps and denial of access to second pensions at a time when their male colleagues were given access to them.
The aim now seems to be, ‘Let’s give them one more twist of injustice in the name of equalisation as they come to the end of their working lives’. That is an absolute travesty; it offers people stone for bread. This Parliament should be doing better than that.”
Shadow Minister for Work and Pensions Angela Rayner MP, said: “It is absolutely great to follow the excellent speech made by Mark Durkan.”