Pensions minister Baroness Ros Altmann is to shun questions surrounding women’s state pensions in a House of Commons Work and Pensions Select Committee meeting this morning (27 April).
In a tweet posted this morning, ahead of today’s House of Commons Work and Pensions select committee, Baroness Altmann said she “will give evidence on intergenerational policy, but not women’s state pensions proposals”.
The state pension age is set to reach 65 for women by November 2018 and 66 by 2020.
Women born on or after 6 April 1951 now facing waiting longer than expected to draw their state pension.
Changes to the law mean their state pension age is going up faster than many women had expected all of their working lives.
As such, women’s state pensions have come under the spotlight recently as a campaign group - the Women Against State Pension Inequality group - secured a parliamentary debate on the subject.
The campaigners originally called on the government to make fair transitional arrangements for all women born on or after 6 April 1951 “who have unfairly borne the burden of the increase to the state pension age”, adding that “hundreds of thousands of women have had significant changes imposed on them with a lack of appropriate notification”.
Subsequently, research was released which showed almost half - 46 per cent of the population - disagree with the change to the state pension age for women.
This proportion of people thought the government should stick to its original promise, according to retiresavvy.co.uk, which conducted an online poll of 2,600 adults aged 18 to 75 in March this year.
Recently FTAdviser reported government communication of changes to the state pension has been so bad “neither the winners nor losers yet know who they are”, in what Saga branded a “shambles”.
Most people retiring under the new ‘flat-rate’ regime from 6 April will not receive the much publicised £155.65 weekly rate, a Work and Pensions select committee final report found at that time.
But “failures of communication mean too few people understand” the true amount they are likely to receive, as the government has “focused on the full flat rate”, the MPs said.
ruth.gillbe@ft.com
