State Retirement Pensions: Females

(asked on 19th October 2017) - View Source

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 28 June 2017 to Question 107, for what reasons women born between 6 April 1950 and 5 April 1953 were not informed sooner of their new state pension age under the provisions of the 1995 Pensions Act.


Answered by
Guy Opperman Portrait
Guy Opperman
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
This question was answered on 24th October 2017

In the years after the 1995 legislation (1995 to 2011) this equalisation was frequently reported in the media and debated at length in parliament. People were notified with leaflets, an extensive advertising campaign was carried out, and later individual letters were posted out.

Evidence submitted to the House of Commons Work and Pensions Committee ‘Communication of state pension age changes’ in 2016 noted that there were more than 600 mentions of State Pension age equalisation in the national broadsheet and tabloid press between 1993 and 2006, an average of just under one per week between 1993 and 2006. There were 54 mentions in the press in 1995, the year in which equalisation was legislated for. This was a significant event to change the age at which women received their State Pension that had existed since 1940. This was news worthy, particularly to those that it affected. Further media coverage occurred around the Pension Acts 2007, 2011 and 2014.

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