A feisty group of North East women campaigning about changes to their State Pension age came together this weekend at a coffee morning hosted by the MP for Newcastle North, Catherine McKinnell.
Catherine joined forces with her constituents, Patricia Ormston and Christine Smith, to organise the informal event at The Lemington Centre for members of the newly-formed Newcastle, Wear and Tees branch of the national Women Against State Pension Inequality campaign – more commonly known as WASPI. Members of the Berwick WASPI branch were also in attendance, making the event a real North East-wide affair.
Changes introduced by legislation in 1995, and then accelerated in 2011, mean that millions of women born after 6th April 1950 – who had previously expected to retire at age 60 – will not be entitled to receive their State Pension until between the ages of 63 and 66. Some women have been affected by both changes, seeing their State Pension age increased twice – with many women have received little, or even no, notification of either increase from the Government. According to the independent House of Commons Library, around 4,000 women are directly affected by the 2011 legislation in Newcastle North alone.
The WASPI campaign works to lobby the Government to introduce transitional arrangements for those women affected, many of whom took early retirement – often due to ill health, or because of increased caring responsibilities – in anticipation of reaching State Pension age at 60, and have been left without any income, in some cases until the age of 66.
Catherine voted against the 2011 Pensions Act because of the disproportionate impact of the changes on this group of women, and has become a Vice Chair of the recently-established All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on the WASPI campaign.
This weekend’s event at The Lemington Centre opened with a minute’s silence for Catherine’s colleague and friend, Jo Cox MP, who was tragically killed last week and had also campaigned on behalf of WASPI women during her 13 months in Parliament. The women went on to focus on ensuring that a national WASPI lobby of Parliament – taking place on 29th June, and for which a large group of North East women are travelling to Westminster – is as successful as possible.
Catherine said:
‘Nobody thinks that the State Pension age shouldn’t be equalised – or that it shouldn’t account for people living longer. But the Government have taken a clear decision that this relatively small group of women born in the 1950s should bear the cost of making our pension system fair, sustainable and affordable for everyone else.
‘That is blatantly unfair and discriminatory – made even worse by the fact that this is a group of women who have faced inequality throughout their working, and often family, lives. To top it off, the Government has singularly failed to properly communicate these changes so that woman across the North East are now facing real financial hardship because they simply didn’t know that they would not receive their State Pension at 60.
‘Ministers are sadly very mistaken if they think the WASPI women are going to go away quietly, and I’m really looking forward to next week’s lobby of Parliament and continuing to make the case – loud and clear – for fair transitional arrangements for those affected.’
Patricia Ormston, Newcastle North constituent and a founder member of the Newcastle, Wear and Tees WASPI branch, said:
‘As a group we were delighted to meet Catherine for whom we have the greatest respect. Her continued support has been inspirational to us all. She has given our group the courage to fight this gross injustice, which has been inflicted on 1950s-born women.
‘We are very lucky to have local support from Catherine and national support from the APPG. We feel this injustice will eventually be rectified by Parliament. A big thank you to all the MPs working so hard on behalf of the WASPI campaign.’