Too little and much too late

‘If I am only awarded £3,000, I’ve spent more than that on banners and train tickets to go to protests’

Dee Kearney, above left, who will receive her state pension when she turns 66 in the summer, has spent years campaigning on behalf of the “Waspi” women who say their retirements were ruined by government changes to the state pension age. She only discovered in 2017 that she would not be able to retire at 60 and said the cost of not knowing that she would have to wait to retire cost her family £57,000. She is one of 3.6million women who were affected by changes to the state pension legislation introduced in 1995, which began to raise the pension age from 2010. It meant it gradually increased from 60 to 65 between 2010 and 2015. Many caught out by the change claim they were not well informed of the changes, putting their retirement plans in tatters. Now, after years of campaigning the Government has said it is considering compensation of as much as £3,000, in the wake of a damning report. Yet this falls significantly short of what many were hoping for. They say the changes resulted in them losing out on tens of thousands in retirement. Others say it has all come too late, with roughly 270,000 of those affected thought to have died waiting for a payout. The former theatre production designer and business adviser said the compensation of up to £2,950 recommended to the Government by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, was an “absolute insult”. She said: “If it is £3,000, I’ve spent more than that on banners and train tickets to go to protests. “The devastation and death, poverty and emotional distress have been completely overlooked for many of the women they targeted for this sting.” Mrs Kearney said: “If you want to look at the actual damages done to women, besides the financial, besides the poverty, besides the illness, the emotional damage and watching each day that another 60 women have died and wondering if you are next. No other person in the country, other than the Waspi women, is aware of how much their mortality is basically in the Government’s hands.”