Last
year, I wrote about the pension issues facing women born between 6 April 1952
and 6 July 1953.[1] Then, foolishly feeling intrepid, and thinking I’d played a
small part in getting some improvements, I wrote again to claim a small
victory.[2]
I
should have known better. No sooner had my blog hit the site than a number of
women affected by the changes were busily contacting me to demand that I
justify my claim. They posed the sort of questions that would have had Albert
Einstein scratching his head and Stephen Hawking turbo-charging his wheelchair.
I
had to admit I was flummoxed. I am pretty certain that the changes made last
May were for the better – and a small victory flag was justified – but there
was no easy consensus as to whether the changes were sufficient to justify the
claim that women born between 6 April 1952 and 6 July 1953 were not being
disadvantaged.
That’s
because it all depends on how you approach the situation, what assumptions are
being made – for example, about life expectancy - and who you are being
compared with. In fact, the Government thinks that such women are better off
under the existing arrangements and also that they will mostly be better off
under the new pension arrangements. I’m reminded of the driver who stopped her
car to ask for directions and was answered with “Well, if I were going
there, I wouldn’t start from here.”
Well,
we are here. In the last debate, the Minister rebuffed suggestions that the
Government report to Parliament on what the actual impact of the changes meant,
rather than simply relying on an analysis of what the impact is likely to be.[3] I expect that in about 50 years’ time, someone will
write their PhD thesis on the actual impact of the changes and will still be
unable to reach a single conclusion.
So,
for now, all I can offer is a comprehensive analysis produced by those very
clever people in the House of Commons’ Library.[4] You can make up your own mind.
Happy
reading.