Waspi women ‘bear brunt of the triple lock’
Waspi women are bearing the brunt of the triple lock on the state pension, a former Tory minister has suggested.
Lord Willetts told i the triple lock, initially implemented by the 2010 coalition government, was “funded by the speeding up of the pension age”.
While he was a minister of state in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills from 2010 to 2014, he said the government decided to speed up the increase in the state pension age for women to help pay for the policy.
Lord Willetts said the triple lock pledge had been made earlier than the changes to the state pension age, but “then there was a question of how to pay for it” because the Government recognised it was “expensive”.
Last week, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman found the Department for Work and Pensions) had committed “maladministration” by failing to properly inform Waspi women (Women Against State Pension Inequality) born in the 50s that the age they would receive their state pension would be pushed from 60 to 65, and later to 66.
The ombudsman recommended up to £2,950 for women affected by the pension changes, but the Government has yet to commit to any payments despite pressure from the Waspi campaign.
Baroness Altmann, a former pensions minister, said: “Part of the cost saving for austerity did indeed come potentially from a second rise in the women’s state pension age.”
The Government estimated in 2019 that undoing state pension age increases for women would cost £181.4bn, over the period 2010-11 to 2025-26.