A group of women involved in the Women Against State Pension Inequality (Waspi) campaign have launched a new Facebook page seeking feedback on a number of potential policy “asks” to address their grievances.
The campaign is made up of women born in the 1950s who were unaware that the government had raised the retirement age from 60 to as high as 66.
The launch of the new page, Waspi Voice, came three weeks after a split in the campaign that saw two of the original five founding Waspi women take control of the group in what the remaining three founders described as a “military-style coup”.
In the welcome note, the creators of Waspi Voice descibe the new page as “a place where you can discuss suggested solutions for ‘fair transitional state pension arrangements’ to help you to reach an informed view about what a realistic solution might look like”.
They emphasise the need for a realistic “ask”, a point upon which they have claimed to differ from the other faction, which is thought to be more ambitious, but less practical.
The page asks for feedback on 10 separate policy asks:
1. Reducing the cap on the maximum increase from the 2011 rise from 18 months to 12 months.
2. A cost neutral option, otherwise known as an “actuarially neutral early retirement”.
3. Reverting to the pre-1995 state pension elibility ages, which effectively would return the pension age to 60.
4. Reverting to pre-2011 state pension eligibility ages, whereby the pension age would rise to the same point, but do so over a longer a period of time.
5. Extend the timetable for increasing the state pension age to 66 by two years - a policy originally proposed by pensions consultant John Ralfe that is estimated to cost £8.5 billion.
6. Maintain the qualifying age for pension credit.
7. Provide affected women with some additional financial support until they reached the state pension age, otherwise known as a “bridge pension”.
8. Give access to other pensioner benefits at an earlier age, such as concessional transport passes and winter fuel payment.
9. Set the retirement date for all women born between April 1953 and April 1960 at 63. Currently retirement for women born between these dates is between 63 and 66.
10. The more ambitious “ask” put forward by the other Waspi faction, which Waspi Voice describes as “a ‘bridging’ pension to cover the gap from age 60 until state pension age”.
james.fernyhough@ft.com
