700,000 women 'treated unjustly' by state pension changes

Updated

Hundreds of thousands of women have been treated "unjustly" because of the "disastrous" way pension changes have been brought-in, the Lords heard.

Labour's Baroness Bakewell said Government "incompetence" meant women heading into retirement now faced financial hardship.

Branding the way increasing the state retirement pension age for women to 66 by 2020 had been introduced as a "disaster", the broadcaster urged ministers to try and salvage the situation as 700,000 women were set to be adversely impacted.

"Through incompetence and faulty communications, many people, mostly women, have been left totally in the dark about what to expect, and as a consequence been suddenly presented with hardship and injustice, and what some of them, writing to me, call theft.%VIRTUAL-ArticleSidebar-pensions%

"The changes to the state pension that will be rolled out in April next year, they promise a fairer deal for women, but the new figures show that of the 400,000 expected to claim the new state pension, only 20,000 women will get the full flat rate of about £155 per week," Baroness Bakewell said.

The Labour peer said many women had written to her expressing anxiety and fear over the situation.

"They are not cheats, they are not scroungers, they are honourable citizens, who after a lifetime of work, and often 40-plus years of contributions, are seeking the pensions those contributions entitled them to," Baroness Bakewell said.

Thousands of women born after April 1951 have complained that they were not given proper notice that they would not get a state pension at 60 as their retirement age is gradually raised.

Pensions minister Baroness Altmann said she had some sympathy with the women affected, but defended the Government's information drive.

Lady Altmann said that since April 2000 more than 11.5 million personalised pension statements had been issues to people who requested them.

The minister also said that advertising campaigns in newspapers and women's magazines had formed part of a wide-ranging information drive on the pensions issue.



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