The judgement in the legal challenge to the way the Government changed the pension age for women will be announced on Thursday (October 3). .
In June Backto60 brought the judicial review case to the Divisional Court, which examined whether 3.9 million women born in the 1950s were appropriately communicated with regarding changes to the state pension age that result in a later retirement.
Up until 2010 women were eligible for their state pension when they reached the age of 60 but changes have seen this rise with the age at which women qualify for the state pension moving up to 65 and then 67.
Backto60 and Waspi campaigners say women born in the 1950s have been unfairly hit, did not receive proper notice and many have been left in poverty.
They are calling for this cohort of women to receive their state pension from the age of 60.
Scores of Thanet women are among the members of the Women Against State Pension Inequality (Waspi) 2018 east Kent branch which says it supports the Backto60 case.
Several of those Thanet women will be in London to hear the judgement this week and the East Kent Waspi campaign is calling for a swarm of women to travel to the capital.
We Paid in You Paid Out. One Voice, Women of Wales and many hundreds more local group members from all over the country will be converging on London in the hope that they will have justice in what could be a historic decision.
Local East Kent Waspi Coordinator, Penny Anne Wells said “We are hoping for positive outcome from the Judicial review, but whatever the decision we will continue campaigning for a speedy resolution. Women are struggling and need action now.”
Waspi say the changes were not publicised after a decision in 2011 to bring them forward, leaving many women unprepared and facing devastating hardships.
The government says the aim is to bring the retirement age for men and women in line. Increasing life expectancy means the government needs to make pension payments later in a person’s life.
East Kent Waspi campaigner Dee Wild says the changes mean she has lost out on 6 years of pension, at a cost of £51,000, and did not receive a letter telling her of the changes.
She says she also lost out on the chance to claim pension credits and is living on her savings.
Dee, who writes The Persistent Pensioner blog, said: “This judgement could make or break the hearts and lives of up to 3.8 million women who have been severely affected. The court case itself was crowd funded by the women from all 1950’s women’s groups, some giving just small amounts as that was all they could afford, but the strength of feeling was quickly demonstrated by it taking only four days to raise the £40.000 courts fees.”
East Kent Waspi women were aso present at a local meeting recently to remind Conservative MP for Thanet South, Craig Mackinlay, as a former Pensions Committee member who promised support for the cause, that women have the vote and intend to use it.
Thousands of women are also taking the DWP to the Ombudsmen in a mass maladministration complaint, which was put on hold during the Judicial Review.
Good luck to the WASPI women.
We are being squeezed hard by this government. Having to work longer and longer before we get our pensions. Having to work more and more overtime, or even second jobs to make up for low wages. Having the fewest holidays than any other country in the EU (if only the EU really DID enforce it’s rules on us!!).
Yet we know that computerisation and the use of robots could do away with so many of our jobs in a very short time. So we should be negotiating EARLIER retirement and SHORTER working hours not more! And we should be making sure that all our neighbouring countries do the same so that we are not to be told “You have to work all these extra hours and years because they do in Europe”. Meanwhile, in the rest of Europe, people will be told they have to work longer because “they do in the UK!”
All luck to our brave Waspi women. Hopefully good sense will prevail in the courts. The way this group of women have been treated is disgusting. Remember that any group of people can be treated like this.
I was born in 1956 so am one of the women in the affected group. However, I strongly support the fact that if women want equality they have to have the same pensionable age as men. To take a Brexit term – we can’t ‘cherry-pick’ what equality we want and don’t want! What I do disagree with, is the steep curve of the introduction of the new legislation which means I won’t get my pension until I am 66. It should have been more of a gradual introduction and I would have been quite happy for mine to have been say 63 or 64. Unfortunately whenever this legislation was introduced, there were always going to be those who lost out and we 50s ladies are in that group.