A RALLY will take place in London’s Hyde Park on October 10 at noon to protest at the government’s refusal to change its plan to raise the pension age for women and to mobilise support in the campaign to defend women penalised by the changes. 

Backto60, along with other campaign groups like Women Against State Pension Inequality (Waspi), argues against the inequality and unfair treatment of women born in the 1950s who have experienced changes to their state pension age. 

The rise in the pension age from 60 to 65 and then 66 for women was far more drastic than for men, who faced a one-year rise in 2020, compared with a six-year rise for women. 

The implementation of the taper means women will have to wait longer and longer for their pension and was made worse by the failure of the government to inform individuals how the decision would affect them. 

And the decision targeted one particular group — those born in the 1950s in a much more drastic way than anybody else. 

Successive governments have failed to even consider reviewing its effects. Labour MP Carolyn Harris presented the Pensions Review of Women's Arrangements (No 2) Bill 2017-19 to Parliament on September 7 2017, on behalf of the all-party parliamentary group on state pension inequality for women. 

Its purpose is to “establish a review of pension arrangements for women affected by changes made by the Pensions Act 1995 and the Pensions Act 2011; to require the review in particular to undertake costings for a compensation scheme and consider the operation of section 1(4) of the Pensions Act 2011; and for connected purposes.” 

It is scheduled to have its second reading on Friday October 26.

The campaign group Backto60 has 738,000 supporters and is supported by a legal team led by renowned civil rights barrister Michael Mansfield and legal firm Birnberg Peirce. 

When the 1995 Conservative government’s Pension Act included plans to increase the women’s state pension age to 65 — the same as men’s — the changes were implemented unfairly, with little or no personal notice. 

The changes were implemented faster than promised with the 2011 Pension Act, and left women with no time to make alternative plans, leading to devastating consequences.

A damning academic expert opinion on successive Westminster governments’ failure to meet their international obligations to 1950s women hit by the rise in the pension age is to be presented in court soon as part of an application for a judicial review of the decision. 

Law professor Jackie Jones at the University of the West of England has produced the report, which shows that this group of women have suffered discrimination contrary to an international convention signed by successive Westminster governments. 

Jones says: “The effect of the mechanisms in issue in this case has a discriminatory effect on women born in the ’50s, adversely impacting on older women’s health, economic and social life in that the voluntary use of the mechanisms have the effect of failing to provide adequate access to pensions for women and therefore must be removed and full restitution substituted.”

Thatcher’s government in 1986 took the decision to sign up to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (Cedaw) — an international treaty adopted by the United Nations general assembly and now recognised by 189 countries. 

Tony Blair’s government went a step further in 2004, accepting an optional protocol, and British ministers of all parties have played an active role in its international work for many years.

The effect of the government measures of delay in being able to access state-sponsored pensions has meant a decrease in income for women born in the ’50s as well as obligating these women to continue to work or to find employment in order to make up any shortfall in pensions. 

This has led to substantial financial insecurity for the women affected. By its actions, the government has discriminated against these women because they are women, as the measures only seriously adversely affect women born in the ’50s, made the economic and health position of women born in the ’50s significantly worse and thereby infringed their human rights and fundamental freedoms as prescribed by Cedaw.

Thatcher’s social security secretary John Moore started undermining the position of women in 1988, first by withdrawing Treasury money to the national insurance fund, leading eventually to a shortfall of £271 billion. This included not only pensions but the funding of maternity allowances. 

Then John Major’s government took the decision to raise the pension age rather than start paying money again into the fund which would have more than covered the current £77bn to restore pensions for the ’50s women. 

Successive governments, including Theresa May’s, either did nothing or made matters worse by raising the pension age further, claiming there was no money.