Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. I want to welcome the opportunity to discuss this very important issue today. Decisions made at Westminster by an out-of-touch and uncaring Government have had a terrible impact on millions of British women, including an estimated 200,000 women here in Wales. The WASPI women, those who have contributed all their lives to our country, have been effectively abandoned. For many of us, those women are our friends, acquaintances, close family and the women we see all around us in our communities on a daily basis.

With the recent news on the Windrush generation, it seems that the breaking of the social commitment that has bound our country together for decades is the sole ambition of the Tories in Westminster. However, it is precisely because it is UK Ministers who have caused this problem, and indeed in a spirit of justice and fairness, that we need to take urgent remedial action. That is why I am supporting the Government’s amendments today. The best outcome from today’s debate for WASPI women will be that we send a clear and incontrovertible message to Westminster that what UK Ministers have done is wrong. 

We should all be familiar with what has happened in this case. Legislation from 1995 set out an intention for women’s state pension age to increase to 65 by 2020. Iain Duncan-Smith, who boasts of being able to live on £53 a week whilst in reality claiming nearly £100 in expenses for a new stapler, forced through these changes. His Pensions Act 2011 accelerated the timetable, bringing the change forward to November this year and putting in place a further rise to age 66 by 2020. His promises for transitional arrangements were not kept. And who were these transitional arrangements for? They would have helped the millions of women born in the 1950s who now face the pushing back of the age at which they expected to claim their state pensions—pensions that they have paid into all their lives, worked hard for, contributed to.

What is worse, these changes were made with little or no notice, forced through without time to make alternative plans. So, now, WASPI women have to work for longer, or indeed find new employment altogether. Evidence from Age UK has shown the challenges for those in physically demanding jobs having to work for longer, the additional stress, strain and ill health. Whilst changes to state pension age may offer no personal challenge to Prime Minister Theresa May, that is not the case for most other women, especially those working in physically demanding roles such as, for example, carers, cleaners or jobs in retail. Moreover, there are challenges around workplace skills. I've been told of the barriers facing one WASPI woman from my local area. Having retired on the basis of misleading DWP information, she needs to return to the workplace now, but is having no success. As she says, 'I can’t use a computer and who wants to employ an exhausted, unskilled 62-year-old?'

A further complicating factor is that many of these women are also trapped with a double burden. Unpaid caring responsibilities for grandchildren, spouses or perhaps even their own elderly parents take up too much time and energy. In short,

'retirement plans have been shattered with devastating consequences'.

These words come from the Women Against State Pensions Inequality campaign.

The only positive to have come out of this is the way that those 1950s women have fought back so impressively, organising and campaigning to highlight the injustice that has been done to them. Many AMs will have met campaigners and been impressed by their resolve and courage, especially when this is a role that many of them never expected to have to play.

I recently spoke at an event to mark 100 years since the 1918 Representation of the People Act in Cynon Valley Museum. I was joined on the panel by the co-ordinator of the local WASPI group. She told me about the range of profile-raising activities they undertake, but also the practical, albeit less glamorous, work that they do supporting their peers by helping them to complete technical forms and limitless paperwork, and providing friendship and support. As we celebrate the centenary of women gaining the vote, it is good to see the spirit of the suffragettes still alive.

In 1918, the UK Government extended the franchise to recognise women's campaigning and practical work during the war. The duty is now on the UK Government to make changes, to put in place the transitional arrangements this current generation of women worked all their lives for, to give them back their dues, their hope and their future.