Minister ‘bullied and insulted’ by women’s group over pension age
ROS ALTMANN, the pensions minister, claims she has been “bullied and vilified” by a women’s campaign group. The Tory peer told The Sunday Tele
graph that she has faced a sustained hate campaign from the pressure group Women Against State Pension Inequality (WASPI) since she became a minister in the Department for Work and Pensions last year.
She said she was the victim of “incessant tweets and emails, trolling, insults and many swear words” after the campaign gave out her email address to thousands of their angry supporters.
Baroness Altmann said: “These women have emailed me horrid and vile messages, such as hoping I get struck down with cancer, that I’m a traitor, a turncoat and that I’ve sold my soul to the devil.”
WASPI campaigners have criticised Baroness Altmann for refusing to support their demand for financial help for women born in the 1950s who are now seeing their state pension age put back from 60 to 66.
They argue that women born since April 6, 1951, were not given enough notice that their state pension age would rise so quickly and that some women have only found out a few months before their 60th birthday that they are not able to retire.
WASPI has claimed that Baroness Altmann, in her former role as director general of Saga, where she campaigned for pensioners’ rights, had backed them but has backtracked in office.
The pensions minister denies this.
Baroness Altmann said: “The insults and the bullying of the campaigners have really shocked me.” The campaign was granted a Commons debate last Monday after more than 145,000 people signed a WASPI petition calling for “fair transitional arrangements” for women who will wait longer than they expected for their state pensions.
The Tory peer said the campaign is wrong to demand that women get “special treatment” and calls their demands “utterly unreasonable”.
She added: “This campaign isn’t about equality. It’s actually advocating state pension inequality. The pension changes simply bring women into line with men.
“It doesn’t make sense for women to be expecting to get their state pensions before men can claim theirs. Why do they think they are a special case?
“I’ve never supported the aims of this campaign ever. WASPI has been misleading people into thinking they are calling for something reasonable when actually they are not.
“It would cost £2 billion to give this group of women what the campaign is asking for. Where do you stop?”
She said she had called for a slower timetable to raise the women’s state pension age but added: “This Government has to make difficult choices “I’ve tried to help these women because I do have sympathy for them, but there’s only so much that I can do. We have to draw the line somewhere.”
Anne Keen, a founder of the campaign, said: “WASPI is not responsible for any abuse and we certainly do not condone any personal attacks on Ros Altmann.
“I gave out an email address that was publicly available on her website to a few thousand WASPI followers. I did not do that with any ill intent.
“We’ve asked our supporters to keep their emails respectful at all times.”