Pensions Minister Steve Webb has promised that proposed changes to men and women’s retirement ages will not penalise women in their fifties.
Concerns had been raised that plans for a universal state pension age of 66 by 2020 would mean that women born between December 1953 and October 1954 faced the steepest rise in their pension age and could see their retirement delayed by two years.
Addressing delegates at the Liberal Democrat conference, Webb said: “Although we stand by our plans to equalise men and women more quickly and to move to age 66 more quickly, I can assure you we will do all we can to ease that transition for the particular group of women most affected by the change.
“We will make sure that the state pension they do get is calculated in a fairer way. At the moment, pensions are often bad news for women and I am determined as the minister to change that.
“There is a range of things that you can do, whether it is about dates or about other bits of the system, that would ease the financial pressure for those most affected.”
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