Daniel Kawczynski – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Daniel Kawczynski on 2016-03-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what notification was given to women affected by the Pensions Act 1995.

Justin Tomlinson

Following the Pensions Act 1995, State Pension estimates, issued to individuals on request, made the changes clear. The DWP’s State Pension estimates have been providing individuals with their most up-to-date date of reaching State Pension age since 1995. Over that period, we have encouraged anyone seeking to plan for their retirement to get a pension statement. Since April 2000, the Department has issued more than 11.5 million personalised State Pension statements to people who requested them. We continue to encourage people to request one, as part of our on-going communications.

DWP also ran a pensions education campaign in 2004, which included informing people of the future equalisation of SPA. The campaign included:

• Advertising features in the press and women’s magazines
• A ‘Women’s Pensions Pack’ containing leaflets for women about changes in State Pension age, made available through the Pensions Service
• Direct mailings targeted specifically at women highlighting that women’s SPA is changing
• Sending State Pension forecast letters and accompanying leaflet showing the person’s SPa and explaining who is affected by the changes to women’s SPa (issued to those who requested them)
• Developing an interactive State Pension date/age calculator facility on the Pensions Service website

In addition to these efforts, all those affected by the 1995 Act changes were sent letters between April 2009 and March 2011 using the address details held by HMRC at that time.