I am backing Age UK’s campaign against government plans to accelerate the state pension age which could see 500,000 women across the country waiting for more than year longer for their state pension than promised under the Coalition Agreement.
The government’s proposals will hurt thousands of hard-working women who believed their retirement was just around the corner. Almost 10,000 women in Birmingham – including 1,200 women in Northfield – could be forced to wait up to two years longer and stand to lose up to £10,000 as a result.
Many of these are women who have juggled working lives with raising a family, and who have very little retirement saving to fall back on. The lack of warning of these changes means they do not have enough time to adjust carefully thought-out retirement plans and leaves them feeling robbed of their pensions.
This is yet another broken promise from the Conservative-led government who last year pledged in the Coalition Agreement that they would not raise the state pension age for women before 2020.
I have signed a parliamentary motion (EDM 1402) calling on the government to reverse the changes which break the Coalition Agreement’s pledge to hold off speeding up the equalisation of the State Pension Age.
I have also written to the minister for pensions to raise the issue and will continue to work with my Labour colleagues in Parliament to challenge the government to stick to their promise.
