Credit: Sarah Agnew, Unsplash
Stephen has voiced concern that elderly men and women who have been underpaid on their state pensions are being turned away by government call centre staff – with some having phones hung up on them.
Officials at the Department for Work and Pensions have been ordered to cut short calls about the state pension from anyone who does not fit into a specific set of groups, according to both the Public Accounts Committee and the Work and Pensions Select Committee, which Stephen chairs.
The “extremely worrying” policy was highlighted in a joint letter from Stephen and the chair of the Public Accounts Committee, Meg Hillier. They warned some pensioners could lose hope in the fight for a fair pension.
Around 134,000 have been underpaid in total. Some of them could be owed lump sums amounting to tens of thousands of pounds – but the DWP has previously said it could take years to pay the funds back because of the time it takes to track each individual down. The departement has set its own deadline of December 2023 for these reviews.
Latest figures show just 9% of the £1billion owed has been repaid. Stephen described the situation was “worrying” and added “…the onus is on the DWP to repay those whose pensions have been underpaid. This should be done as soon as possible.”