Women challenge decision to hike their state pension age in landmark legal case

Women suffering hardship because their state pension age was raised to 66 are challenging the decision in a judicial review at the High Court this week.

Millions of women born in the 1950s have taken a financial hit as a result of delays to when they can start drawing the state pension, which is currently £168.60 a week.

Thousands of complaints about the Government’s decision in 2011 to hasten the age hikes for women, and failures to notify them over the years, have been piling up at its door – and these are on hold until after the judicial review.

We explain what has happened to women’s state pension age (and how men’s are being raised now too), what arguments are being made at the High Court this week, and what might happen afterwards.

How were women’s state pension age hikes decided – and then speeded up?

A version of the plans to equalise men and women’s state pension age was outlined in 1995, when the then Conservative Government stated the intention of gradually raising women’s retirement age to 65 between 2010 and 2020.

This was followed in 2007 by a Labour announcement that both men and women would see their retirement age go up to 66 between 2024 and and 2026.

But in 2011, then Chancellor George Osborne brought forward the timing of both changes to 2018 and 2020 respectively, hitting women particularly hard because their increases happen both sooner than expected and in quick succession.

Initially, the overhaul included a cap of a maximum two years’ extra wait for a state pension, but protests led to the cap being reduced to 18 months.

Some 2.6million women got just five years’ notice of an extension to their pension age.

The Women Against State Pension Inequality – or WASPI – campaign says it agrees with equalising women’s and men’s pension ages, but not the ‘unfair’ way the changes are being implemented and the lack of communication to women about changes which would have a major – and in some cases devastating – impact on their future finances.

It is fighting for measures to cushion the financial blow, and urging women who are affected to lodge formal complaints with the Government about maladministration.  

What is the judicial review about?

The judicial review is the result of efforts by a different women’s campaign group, BackTo60.

Its legal team is led by barrister Michael Mansfield QC. 

On Wednesday and Thursday this week, two claimants will argue that raising their pension age discriminated against them on the grounds of their age and their sex, and that they were not properly informed of the changes in time to adjust.

Some women have missed out on as much as £45,000 in state pension, and BackTo60 believes that they should be refunded. 

Spokeswoman Joanne Welch told This is Money that she expects the group’s claim to be granted due to the strength of their arguments.

She says women who are ‘on their knees’ financially have turned to the group, but become ‘warriors’ as they teach themselves about social media and start campaigning for their cause.

There has been an outpouring of support for the group on Twitter under the hashtag #Backto60, and a demonstration is being held outside the Royal Courts of Justice in central London on the first day of the legal case. 

In a judicial review, judges consider whether a decision made by a public body was lawful. 

Two judges are set to hear submissions in the next few days, and then they are expected to reserve their judgment, which means the outcome won’t be known for a while. 

What might happen as a result of the case?

What ruling might be made is, of course, unknown. 

However, thousands of women have also lodged formal protests about maladministration in the way changes to the state pension age were made, and these are on hold until after the judicial review.

Making a complaint is a convoluted process that involves writing first to the Department for Work and Pensions, then the Independent Case Examiner’s Office, and finally to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman.

The WASPI campaign has a guide to doing this here.  

The group says regarding the judicial review: ‘The court cannot make a judgement on maladministration because that is the role of the PHSO.

‘Once the outcome of the judicial review is known, it is expected that there will be a period of consideration from the two organisations central to this process, the DWP and the PHSO, about how to proceed. This will inform the next steps for our campaign.’

What does the Government say?

In a statement ahead of the judicial review, a DWP spokesman said: ‘The Government decided more than 20 years ago that it was going to make the state pension age the same for men and women as a long-overdue move towards gender equality, and this has been clearly communicated.

‘We need to raise the age at which all of us can draw a state pension so it is sustainable now and for future generations.’