Half a million women in their 50s could be severely disadvantaged by government plans to increase the retirement age and, therefore, when they start receiving their pensions.
The Pensions Bill, currently being debated in the Lords, will deprive 33,000 women in their mid-fifties of over £10,000, and 500,000 women of between £5,000 and £10,000.
This is because the government has decided to accelerate increases to the state pension age to reach 65 by 2018 (previously 2020) and 66 by 2020 (previously 2026).
The pension age for 500,000 women born in 1953 and 1954 will increase by more than a year. 300,000 women born between December 1953 and October 1954 must wait 18 months or more. 33,000 women born between 6 March and 5 April 1954 will have an increase of two years - an increase in the time before they can claim their hard earned pension entitlements.
These women have planned their retirement on the basis they will reach state pension age in March 2018. They now have just seven years to plan and must work an extra two years.
Such women are already disadvantaged. They tended to earn far less during their working careers. They were often prohibited from joining a private pension scheme because part-time workers were included only relatively recently. Interrupted careers gave them less chance to build up a pension outside the state system.
There is an alternative to these rushed and ill-thought-through changes. The key issue is timing, giving men and women a chance to plan for their retirement - not moving the goalposts just before the whistle blows.
As society gets older we have to accept that people will work longer to create the wealth on which we all rely. Labour would address the issue of increasing longevity but fairly.
There should be no change before 2020, followed by an increase in the state pension age for men and women to 66 between 2020 and 2022.
This would affect 1.2 million fewer people. It would still save £20 billion but no-one would have an increase in state pension age of more than a year, and everyone would be given at least nine years' notice.
Newcastle Chronicle and Journal
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