Millions of women forced to work longer as state pension age court battle is lost

MILLIONS of women could be forced to work longer or survive off less cash after a landmark state pension court battle was lost today.

Nearly 1.56million women born in the 1950s have been affected by the changes, according to House of Commons Library estimates, which has seen the state pension age for women jump from 60 to 66.

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And altogether, the House of Commons Library estimates nearly 4million women have seen their state pension age rise from 60 - even if it's to less than age 66.

In future, the state pension age will rise again to 68 for younger generations.

The shake-up was introduced by successive governments in 1995, 2007, and 2011 to bring women's state pension age in line with men and to account for the fact that people are both living and working for longer.

But women born in the 1950's claim the policy is discriminatory and that they weren't given enough time to prepare, meaning they don't have enough to live off in retirement or that they're forced to work for longer.

Tom Selby, senior analyst at financial provider AJ Bell, says the financial impact of having to wait up to six more years to receive the state pension is "significant and for many just scraping by it has pushed them into serious financial hardship".

What happened at court?

Two claimants - Julie Delve, 61, and Karen Glynn, 63 - took the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to court, arguing that raising their pension age "unlawfully discriminated against them on the grounds of age, sex, and age and sex combined".

The pair, supported by campaign group Backto60, also claimed they were not given adequate notice in order to be able to adjust to the changes.

Another group called WASPI (Women Against State Pension Inequality) has also been furiously campaigning against the "unfair changes".

But, giving judgement at the High Court in London today, Lord Justice Irwin and Mrs Justice Whipple dismissed the claim.

In a summary of the court's decision, the judges said: "There was no direct discrimination on grounds of sex, because this legislation does not treat women less favourably than men in law.

"Rather it equalises a historic asymmetry between men and women and thereby corrects historic direct discrimination against men."

The court also rejected the claimants' argument that the policy was discriminatory based on age, adding that even if it was "it could be justified on the facts".

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The Sun has asked Backto60 for a comment and also asked it if it plans to appeal the decision to take the case further.

But Tom McPhail, head of policy at financial provider Hargreaves Lansdown, says that given most of the women involved are now already past their revised state pension age, it is "hard to see where the campaign will go from here".

A DWP spokesperson said: “We welcome the High Court’s judgment. It has always been our view that the changes we made to women’s state pension age were entirely lawful and did not discriminate on any grounds.

“The government decided in 1995 that it was going to make the state pension age the same for men and women as a long-overdue move towards gender equality.

"Raising state pension age in line with life expectancy changes has been the policy of successive administrations over many years.”

'People need to prepare for retirement'

Steven Cameron, pensions director at Aegon says there were failings made by the government but adds that the changes were needed.

He said: "The millions of women affected by the increase in state pension age have had to face a significant change to their lives and retirement aspirations.

"For such a huge change, there needs to be very clear, timely and personalised communications and clearly there were failings here.

"But had the state pension age for women not been brought into line with that for men and indeed the common age increased further as is now happening, at a time when we are on average living longer, it would have placed a massive and unsustainable extra burden on the working age population."

Mr McPhail adds that the critical point to take from the ruling is to prepare for retirement.

He said: "The critical learning point from this court judgement is people need to prepare for retirement well in advance.

"It was this disconnect between these women’s expectations and their impending reality check of a later state pension, which has resulted in the lawyers getting involved.”

The ruling comes as new research reveals that women are £106,000 worse off than men in retirement due to a "part-time pensions penalty".

This is where they take time out of work to look after children or their own parents later in life, while they also typically get paid less than men for doing the same role - which impacts how much they save into their pensions.

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We've previously warned how half a million of working parents with children under 12 may be missing out thousands of pounds worth of cash in retirement.

Missing out on just one month's worth of national insurance (NI) credits could lose you £5,000 from the total value of your state pension, according to the HMRC.

Mum-of-two Carolyn Inness warned how she nearly missed out on an £8,550 a year state pension by not claiming child benefit.

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