Edinburgh MP calls on Boris Johnson to honour promise to women affected by rising state pension age

Edinburgh West Lib Dem MP Christine Jardine has called on Boris Johnson to make good on his promise to help women affected by the rising state pension age after a watchdog ruled the UK government had been too slow to warn women about it.

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Women born in the 1950s have long complained they were not aware their retirement age was increasing from 60 to 65, and later 66, until it was too late to prepare.

And now the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman has said the Department of Work and Pensions should have acted faster after research in 2005 found only 43 per cent of women in the affected age group knew their state pension age was changing.

Christine Jardine, Lib Dem MP for Edinburgh West

The ombudsman said the department should have written to the women alerting them to the situation two years earlier than they did. The investigation will now continue and bring forward recommendations on putting the situation right.

But Ms Jardine said during his 2019 Conservative leadership election, Mr Johnson had committed “to doing everything I possibly can” to help the three million women in the UK caught out by the change.

Ms Jardine said: “This is finally some hope that there is light at the end of the tunnel for all those women who have faced enormous hardship.

“We yet again see this frustrating tendency of the Prime Minister to promise one thing but not actually go on to deliver it.

“I hope the UK government can acknowledge its error, take stock of the findings and act to help these women, who have been treated so poorly through no fault of their own to get compensation.”

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