On Wednesday 1 February, there was a Back Bench Business debate in the House of Commons on raising the State Pension Age to 68. Stephen spoke about the need for transparency in DWP in order to properly inform considerations on state pension age.
As required by a 2014 law, the Government is set to undertake a review of the State Pension Age. Current Government policy is to bring the increase to 68 forward to 2037, but recent reports suggest Ministers are now considering bringing the date further forward to 2035 to reduce public expenditure.
During the debate on this matter, Stephen argued that the Department for Work and Pensions must be properly equipped with the right evidence when making this decision, such as life expectancy rates - since 2017 evidence has emerged that average life expectancy has stalled for women and declined for men.
Speaking in Parliament, Stephen said “preventing public discussion no doubt has the benefit of allowing Ministers to avoid having to answer difficult questions, but it has the disastrous drawback of worsening policy outcomes. The policy cannot be informed by public debate before the decisions are made, because the evidence that would allow a debate is not available.”
You can watch Stephen’s full speech below.