Campaigners in pension victory
A GOVERNMENT decision to delay the raising of the retirement age has been hailed as a victory by West Norfolk campaigners.
But opponents of pension reform insist that ministers could still do more, even though the changes will help hundreds of women in this area alone who would otherwise not have had enough time to prepare for the impact of having to work for longer.
Last week, the government announced that proposals to raise the state pension age from 65 to 66 would be delayed by six months until October 2020.
At present, the pension age for a woman is 60, but this is still due to rise to 65 by 2018 under the coalition’s plans.
Officials from the West Norfolk Women and Carers’ Pension Network, who went to Downing Street to hand in a petition calling on the government to rethink the issue, have welcomed the development.
Chief executive Alexandra Kemp said: “This will help 1,300 local women now in their 50s facing an unexpected rise in their state pension age of up to two extra years with not enough time to plan for the change.”
But she also warned: “The changes could go further though and the Government should protect those women, many of them family carers, who will still have to wait up to an extra 18 months to get their state pension.
“Our research found that women in West Norfolk found it more difficult than women in other parts of the country to build up state pensions in their own right so they do deserve special consideration when it comes to the state pension because they put caring for families first.”
Critics had previously claimed that the reforms, which would have left some facing a two-year wait to claim a state pension, would have affected more than 300,000 women across the country.
However, opponents still fear many will struggle to cope with the delays in obtaining a pension and say ministers should have done more to give them more notice of the changes.
But the government said they had met their pledge to consider the cases of those hardest hit by the reform proposals.
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Weather for King's Lynn
Sunday 27 May 2012
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