Pensions minister won’t talk about rising pension age!
As men and women retire at same age for first time...
‘He’s running scared’
THE pensions minister was last night accused of ‘ running scared’ after refusing to discuss anger at the rising retirement age for women.
Guy Opperman has told his staff he wants to ‘limit’ the amount of time he spends talking about the state pension issue, documents seen by Money Mail reveal.
It comes as the rising state pension age means millions will be forced to work longer before they can afford to retire. From today the state pension age will be the same – 65 – for both men and women for the first time.
It used to be 60 for women and 65 for men but since 2011 it has been gradually equalised.
And in 2020, the age at which both sexes can claim their state pension will rise again to 66.
Many women say they were never informed about the plan and found out only months before they were due to turn 60 that they would have to carry on working for five or six years.
Some said they had already stopped working in the expectation they would receive their pension and have struggled to make their savings last.
The campaign group Women Against State Pension Inequality (Waspi) says the changes have hit 3.9million women who had believed they would be able to retire at 60. It adds that some will miss out on around £45,000 because of losing six years’ worth of a weekly state pension. Internal documents from the Department for Work and Pensions suggest officials have been instructed to restrict the number of interviews Mr Opperman does about the state pension.
When discussing one request for an interview about the impact of the equalisation of the pension age on women, an official wrote: ‘ Decline, in its current form. We are unlikely to get a fair hearing… MfP [the minister for pensions] has consistently expressed a desire to limit media he does on the state pension issue.’
Anne Keen, 65, founder of Waspi, said: ‘ In 2012 I found out 13 months before I turned 60 that I would not receive my pension for another five years.
‘My savings are gone because I did stop working in 2013 as I planned to, but I didn’t get my pension. Now the minister is running scared and refusing to address the issue.’
Meanwhile, a former pensions minister has claimed Mr Opperman and then work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith ‘shut down’ her fears the changes would give women little time to prepare.
Baroness Altmann was supportive of the Act to equalise the costs of state pension. But in 2011 plans were announced to increase the women’s state pension age further and she campaigned to keep to the previous timetable. Mr Opperman and Mr Duncan Smith did not comment on the claims.