City council chiefs back campaign by women fighting pension reforms

Applause and cheers rang out from the public gallery at Southampton Civic Centre as politicians of all colours agreed to support the Solent branch of Women Against State Pension Inequality (WASPI) in their campaign.

The vote puts them at odds with one of the city’s MPs, who is now a junior minister in the Department of Work and Pensions – Caroline Nokes, (Romsey and Southampton North) parliamentary under-secretary of state for welfare delivery.

Their fight is part of a national campaign centring around the speeding up of changes brought in by the 1995 pension act which mean hundreds of thousands of women across the UK, born on or after April 6, 1951, seeing their retirement plans thrown into disarray.

A woman born on March 6, 1953, could have retired on her birthday this year, aged 63, but a woman born four months later will not get her pension until her 64th birthday.

Over an 18-month period, women’s pensionable age will have increased by three years under plans the Conservative government have to equalise pension ages.

The group told the chamber that 11,000 women in the Southampton area have been hit by the changes which are causing them financial hardship and leaving their retirement plans in tatters.

Some are being forced to return to work, rely on benefits and even sell their homes in a bid to survive – at a time when they could also be looking after elderly relatives or young grandchildren.

Sally Robinson, 63, told the chamber that it was not the pension age itself that is in dispute, as it was widely accepted that men and women should retire at the same time.

But she said the rise in women’s state pension age had been “too rapid” and without sufficient notice.

She added: “All we are asking for is fairness.”

Coxford ward representative Councillor Tammy Thomas, in her maiden speech, called for a “bridging pension” to help women affected meet the shortfall.

Speaking after the meeting she added: “It really touched a nerve all those people who have worked so hard all their lives are being penalised for what is essentially a government mistake. We asked the leader of the council to write to the secretary of state to consider making fair non-means tested transitional arrangements.”

Conservative leader Jeremy Moulton supported their campaign but warned that a bridging pension could cost the country up to £77bn adding: “We need to be conscious of the huge sums of money.”

The chamber unanimously agreed to lobby the government and write to the department of work and pensions for extra help for women.

Afterwards group member Maggie Longley said: “It’s fantastic and really good that the council will lobby Parliament.”

As previously reported by the Daily Echo, National WASPI campaigners raised £100,000 towards costs for legal action against the government in what is thought to be a record three weeks, with the first £50,000 raised within 24 hours.

The group plans to use the money to fund a judicial review challenge to the legality of the government’s changes or towardsmaladminstration complaints against the department of work and pensions.

Speaking in the House of Commons recently Ms Nokes said: “The government will make no further changes in the pension age or provide financial redress in lieu of pension.

A total of £1.1 billion has already been committed to lessen the impact of the changes on those who will be most affected, so that no one will experience a change of more than 18 months.”

Asked if there was room to manoeuvre on the government’s proposals, Ms Nokes told the Commons: “A range of potential options have been proposed by a number of different campaigns, but nothing that is specifically aimed at those most disadvantaged by the state pension age increases, and none of them has proposed something significantly better or, indeed, affordable and at an acceptable cost to the taxpayer.”

Following the city council vote a DWP spokesperson told the Echo: “The decision to equalise the state pension age between men and women was made over 20 years ago and achieves a long-overdue move towards gender equality. There are no plans to change the transitional arrangements already in place. Women retiring today can still expect to receive the state pension for 26 years on average – several years longer than men.”

Fifty eight year old Denise Wyatt was also at the meeting. She said: “I worked until I had my three children in my thirties.

But my son is severely autistic so I had to stay at home and care for him 24 hours a day.

I can’t get anything until my late sixties.

“Now I work a zero hour contract as a carer. I will have a very small private pension from when I was younger but it’s so small and I can’t get it until I’m 65. I don’t know how much I will get when I retire - but it will be the basic, the absolute minimum.

“It’s mostly women who lose out because they have been the carers. And those on a low income have not been able to plan.”

“And you can’t go back to the job you had before because the skills are out of date.

“You’ve got to start from the bottom.

“I think the government really needs to look at giving some form of support to women like myself. You put into your pension and you assume you’re going to get it. But people have got to the point that they don’t trust the government pension either.”

Sally Robinson, 63, has calculated she will miss out on a total of £25,000 because of the changes. She said: “I have got to wait to November 2017 for my pension.

For every month you were born after April 1953 you have to wait another three months for your pension. In 1995 it went up from 60 - 63 and then from the 2011 pension act people had to wait another year longer.

“In 1995 I was busy bringing up my three children and wasn’t told about the changes.

“I gave up work just over two years ago to look after my mother who is now 101 and has dementia. And my husband is quite severely disabled so I had a lot on my plate.

“I was allowed to retire from my job as a civil servant at the age of 60 but I’ve worked since the age of 21 and I’ll be losing £25,000.

“I’m just so angry about it. It’s not just the pension it’s getting the bus pass and the winter fuel allowance - they’re dependent on your pension.

“This is the thing that makes me really angry- I thought I’d worked out what I needed to leave when I did and now it’s the difference between just surviving and having the odd treat like a holiday or a meal out. We have to really think about it now.

“And there are so many more women worse off than me. Some of them are in dire straits.”

In 1995, the Conservative Government’s Pension Act included plans to increase women’s state pension age to 65, the same as men’s.

Under the Pensions Act 2011, women’s state pension age has increased more quickly to 65 between April 2016 and November 2018.

From December 2018 the state pension age for both men and women will start to increase to reach 66 by October 2020.

But women born in the 1950s claim they were not notified of the decision or that it had been implemented and therefore have reached pension age without knowing that they would unable to claim their pension.

BY Rachel Adams and Maxwell Kusi-Obodum