Lucy Care demands pensions justice for women and carers

1.21.25pm GMT Tue 15th Nov 2005

Thousands of women in Derby deserve a fairer pension system

Lib Dem Parliamentary Spokesperson for Derby, Cllr Lucy Care, has welcomed the recent launch of the Women and Pensions Network. This alliance of many organisations, including Age Concern, Help the Aged, the TUC and T&GWU, is calling for the new Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to end the failure of the current pension system for women and carers.

Last week, the Department of Work and Pensions stated that men and women will not achieve similar levels of entitlement to the basic state pension until 2025. This will be achieved partly because the levels of entitlement amongst men are expected to fall! Only 1 in 4 women retiring today are entitled to a full basic State Pension on the basis of their own contributions, compared to nearly 9 out of 10 of men.

In Derby, this means that many of the 16,000 women aged between 45 and 59 are likely to receive lower pensions when they retire than men of the same age.

Lucy Care said: "These figures show that John Hutton, the new Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, has a huge challenge ahead of him.

"Our pension system was designed for 1940s Britain and has not kept up with changing lifestyles. Current solutions to reduce resultant pensioner poverty, like bureaucratic Pensions Credit system, require costly and demeaning means-testing. Urgent and radical action needs to be taken to rethink the whole pensions system.

"Rather than continuing to tinker with the system of National Insurance contributions, the Government should establish a Citizen's Pension, where entitlement is based on long-term UK residency."