Underpayment of Pensions to Women

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:01 pm on 8 June 2021.

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Photo of Joyce Watson Joyce Watson Labour 2:01, 8 June 2021

We know that the underpayment of the state pension to an estimated 200,000 married women has spanned more than 20 years, and it has particularly impacted women who had a poor state pension in their own right. They were entitled to claim 60 per cent state pension based on their husband’s pension contributions. What is particularly scandalous about this error is that many of those women may not be able to claim the full amount that was underpaid to them. Women whose husbands retired before 2008 and hadn’t applied to the DWP for an increase in their pensions will only be entitled to claim a 12-month backpayment. The UK Government, of course, is saying that they wrote to those women informing them of that rule change. However, like in the Women Against State Pension Inequality scandal, many women have said they did not receive that letter. And as a WASPI woman myself, I can tell you I didn’t receive those claim letters either. First Minister, what assessment has the Welsh Government made about the impact of this significant underpayment on those women in Wales and, of course, that lost income to Wales?