Back in March[1],
I sounded the alert about the Government's latest proposal for a single tier pension that would
mean that about 430,000 women born between 6 April
1952 and 6 July 1953 would not qualify for the new pension but men of the same
age would.
That would have affected about 700 women in
South-East Sheffield and more than 4000 women in Sheffield .
Those women would have drawn a state pension income of around £1,900 a year
(£36.55 a week) less than a man of the same age and, even if they did receive
their pension earlier, they were still likely to be worse off.
I ridiculed Ministerial claims that those
women would be better off simply because they were allowed to retire earlier.
It was disingenuous. If these women were retired for 20 years they would lose considerably
more than the pension received for the earlier retirement.
I told those women to make their views
known and to shout about it. They did.
As a result, I’m pleased to be able to
report that George Osborne has caved in and brought the reforms forward by one
year. The move will mean that those women will be able to claim a single-tier
pension, as the new scheme will be introduced on April 6, 2016, and not 2017 as
was previously announced.
