WASPI women and state pension campaign explained including £10,000 compensation

05 March 2024 , 10:40

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WASPI women are campaigning over state pension changes (Image: Liverpool Echo/Andrew Teebay)

The Women Against State Pension Inequality (WASPI) campaign was set up to support women who have been negatively affected by the increase in their pension age.

WASPI women, born in the 1950s, claim they weren't correctly informed by the Government that their state pension age would go up. It meant thousands of women had their retirement plans messed up when the 1995 Conservative Government confirmed plans to raise women's state pension age from 60 to 65, between April 2010 and 2020, so that it was the same as men's.

While WASPI campaigners agree with making things equal, they argue that the changes were brought in too quickly and left millions out of pocket. An independent investigation was started by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) five years ago and the group are waiting for a big decision on their fight for compensation.

WASPI points out that it took 14 years after the 1995 Pensions Act for letters to be sent to women born between April 6, 1951, to April 5, 1953. Many of these women got a letter about their retirement age going up just one year before they were supposed to get their pension, reports Liverpool Echo. And lots of others only had two, three, four or five years' warning.

A spokesperson for WASPI said: "Women were given as little as one year's notice of up to a six-year increase to their State Pension age, compared to men who received six year's notice of a one-year rise to [theirs]. Many women report receiving no letter ever and others say letters were sent to the wrong address despite notifying the DWP of the address change."

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