“Make Fair Transitional State Pension arrangements for 1950’s women.
This Council
calls upon the Government to make fair transitional state pension arrangements
for all women born on or after 6th April 1951, who have unfairly borne the
burden of the increase to the State Pension Age (SPA) with lack of appropriate
notification.
Hundreds of
thousands of women had significant pension changes imposed on them by the
Pensions Act of 1995 and 2011 with little/no/personal notification of the
changes. Some women had only two years notice of a six year increase to their
state pension age.
Many women
born in the 1950s are living in hardship. Retirement plans have been shattered
with devastating consequences. Many of these women are already out of the
labour market, caring for elderly relatives, providing childcare for
grandchildren, or suffer discrimination in the workplace so struggle to find
employment. Women born in this decade are suffering financially. These women
have worked hard, raised families and paid their tax and national insurance
with expectation that they would be financially secure when reaching 60. It is
not the pension age itself that is in dispute – it is widely accepted that
women and men should retire at the same time. The issue is that the rise in the
women’s state pension age has been too rapid and has happened without
sufficient notice being given to the women effected, leaving women with no time
to make alternative arrangements.
This Council
calls upon the Government to reconsider transitional arrangements for women
born on or after 6th April 1951, so that women do not live in hardship due to
Pension
changes they were not told about until it was too late to make alternative
arrangements.”